
I 



' 



HOR^E HELLENICS. 



RORM HELLENICS: 



(Essays ant ©iscussions 



ON SOME IMPORTANT POINTS 



OF 



REEK PHILOLOGY AND ANTIQUITY 



i 



BY 



JOHN STUART BLACKIE, F.R.S.E., 

FELLOW OF THE SOCIETY FOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL CORRESPONDENCE, ROME J 

HONORARY MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE SPREAD OF GREEK LETTERS, ATHENS 

AND OF THE GREEK PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY, CONSTANTINOPLE J 

PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 




ILontron: 
MACMILLAN & CO. 

f/ 1874. 



~£6 



Avo Kaipovs 7roiov rod Aeyetv, rj 7repl wv oicrOa (radios, rj nepl wv 
dvajKaiov ei7reiv. ev tovtois yap /xovots 6 Aoyos rrjs arianrfjs KpetTTOov, kv 
8e tols aXXots OLfxetvov criyav rj Xeyeuv. — IsoCRATES. 



fc 



TO 



THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 



WILLIAM EWAET GLADSTONE, M.P., 



STATESMAN, ORATOR, AND SCHOLAR, 



^ht^t $%qz$ nxz Jl-ebtrateb 



BY 



THE AUTHOR. 



University, Edinburgh, 
May 1, 1874. 



CONTENTS. 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER, ..... 1 

ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF .ESCHYLUS, ... 60 

ON THE PHILOLOGICAL GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE 

NEO-HELLENIC DIALECT OF THE GREEK TONGUE, . Ill 

ON THE SCIENTIFIC INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS 

WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY, . 167 

ON THE SOPHISTS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY B.C., . . 197 

ON ONOMATOPOEIA IN LANGUAGE, . . . .217 

ON THE SPARTAN CONSTITUTION AND THE AGRARIAN LAWS 

OF LYCURGUS, ....... 235 

ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY, . . . .255 

REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS, . . . .278 

ON THE POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE, . . 297 

ON THE PLACE AND POWER OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE, . 320 



PREFACE. 

The present volume consists of Essays and Discussions 
on some points of Greek philology and antiquity which 
appeared to me to have been unduly subordinated, or 
altogether neglected, by British scholars, or unwisely 
handled by men of acknowledged talent and reputation. 
Originally published in the Transactions of learned Socie- 
ties and Philological Reviews, they laboured under the 
double disadvantage of being with difficulty consulted 
and with facility ignored. As they are the product of 
hard reading and hard thinking, and raise some questions 
worthy of being seriously grappled with by English 
scholars, the author, whose professional position forces 
him to desire that truth should be stated and error com- 
bated on as open a field as possible, hopes that their 
present collected publication in a form adapted for a 
wider circle of readers will not be attributed to any 
undue amount of self-esteem. 

There are some other papers on similar or cognate 
subjects, which, for various reasons, I have excluded from 

b 



x PREFACE. 

the present collection ; but, as they contain matter that 
might reward a glance from persons interested in the 
subjects which they discuss, it may be useful to give an 
index to them here. They are as follows : — 

1. On English and German Scholarship. — Foreign Quarterly 
Eeview, January 1839. 

2. On Greek Metres.— Ibid., April 1839. 

3. On Euripides and his Dramatic Art. — Hid., January 1840. 

4. On the Ehythmical Declamation of the Ancients. — Classical 
Museum, vol. i. 1844. 

5. On the Teaching of Languages. — Foreign Quarterly Eeview, 
April 1845. 

6. On the Character, Condition, and Prospects of the Greek 
People. — Westminster Eeview, October 1854. 

7. The Philosophy of Plato. — Edinburgh Essays. Edinburgh : 
Black, 1856. 

8. Plato and Christianity. — North British Eeview, November 
1861. 

A lecture on the classical affinities of the Gaelic lan- 
guage, published some years ago and now out of print, 
which met with a very favourable reception from compe- 
tent judges, I have not reprinted here, partly because 
I hope soon to be able to carry on my studies of Gaelic 
philology to more worthy conclusions ; partly because I 
have some reason to believe that Professor Geddes of 
Aberdeen, the Rev. Alexander Cameron of Kenton, and 



PREFACE. xi 

other labourers in this much neglected field, will set 
their hands so seriously and stoutly to the work that any 
further excursions on my part into a domain not specially 
mine may be rendered unnecessary. 

Two other remarks it seems proper to make. If any 
person shall be surprised that, in the paper on Homeric 
theology, I have made no allusion to the genial labours 
of Mr. Gladstone in this same field, the answer is 
ready, that my Essay on this subject was completed 
and published several years before the Homeric Studies 
appeared; and besides, my Essay is so much an affair 
of pure induction from a collection of Homeric pas- 
sages, placed in detail before the reader, that a com- 
parison of concordant or conflicting opinions did not fall 
naturally within its scope. At the same time I may say 
that, so far as my memory serves me, there is no im- 
portant point in the Homeric theology, as deduced by 
me, from which Mr. Gladstone will feel himself called on 
to dissent. How far it has been my misfortune to differ 
from him in regard to certain of his mythological specu- 
lations, the discourse on that subject will sufficiently 
indicate. The other remark I have to make is, that, so 
far as my antagonism to certain philological and mytho- 
logical speculations of my distinguished friend, Professor 
Max Mtiller, is concerned, I have seen nothing either 



xii PREFACE. 

from his pen or from that of any other person, that in 
the slightest degree moves me to any qualification of 
what I have distinctly stated on these points ; and as for 
Mr. Grote, highly as I value the apology for the Athe- 
nian democracy, which is the characteristic feature of his 
great work, it has always appeared to me that there are 
some matters in the intellectual history of the Hellenic 
people with which the unpoetical character of his mind, 
and the negative philosophy which he professed, rendered 
him incompetent to deal. 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER 



TLavret; re 6ecov ^areouacv avOpcoiroi, 

T) Y the theology of Homer, as distinguished from his 
-*-^ mythology, I understand those grand general principles 
with regard to the nature of the gods, and their relation 
to men, which are common to all the individual gods that 
compose the many-faced system of Greek polytheism. The 
special character of the separate gods, their functions and 
actions, have nothing to do with the present inquiry ; as 
little the ceremonial details of worship with which the gods 
are honoured : for these belong manifestly to the practical 
religion, not to the doctrinal theology, of the ancient 
Greeks. 

The theology of the Homeric poems is not the theology 
of an individual, but of an age ; and this altogether irre- 
spective of the Wolfian theory, which, in a style so cha- 
racteristically German, with one sublimely sweeping nega- 
tion removed at once the personal existence of the supposed 
poet, and the actual coherence of the existing poem. The 
principal value of Wolfs theory in the eye of many genu- 
ine lovers of poetry, is that, while it robbed us of the poet 
Homer and his swarms of fair fancies, it restored to us the 
Greek people, and their rich garden of heroic tradition, 
watered by fountains of purely national feeling, and fresh- 
ened by the breath of a healthy popular opinion, which, 



2 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

precisely because it can be ascribed to no particular person, 
must be taken as the exponent of the common national 
existence. To have achieved this revolution of critical 
sentiment with regard to the Homeric poems ; to have 
set before the eyes of Europe, the world-wide distance 
between the poetry of a Shelley or a Coleridge writing to 
express their own opinions, and the songs of a race of 
wandering minstrels singing to give a new echo to the 
venerable voices of a common tradition ; this were enough 
for the great Berlin philologer to have done, without 
attempting to establish those strange paradoxes, repug- 
nant alike to the instincts of a sound aesthetical and of a 
healthy historical criticism, which have made his name so 
famous. The fact is, that the peculiar dogmas of Wolf, 
denying the personality of the poet, and the unity of the 
poems, have nothing whatever to do with that other 
grand result of his criticism to which we have alluded, — 
the clear statement of the distinction between the sung 
poetry of popular tradition, and the written poetry of in- 
dividual authorship. Not because there was no Homer, 
are the Homeric poems so generically distinct from the 
modern productions of a Dante, a Milton, and a Goethe ; 
but because Homer lived in an age when the poet, or 
rather the singer, had, and from his position could have, 
no other object in singing than to reflect the popular tra- 
dition of which his mind was the mirror. As certainly as 
a party newspaper or review of the present day represents 
the sentiments of the party of which it is the organ, so 
certainly did a Demodocus, or a Phemius, a Homer, or a 
Cinsethus, the public singers at the public banquets, of a 
singing, not a printing age,— represent the sentiments of 
the parties, that is, the people in general, for whose enter- 
tainment they exercised their art. 'Tis the very condi- 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 3 

tion, indeed, of all popular writing in the large sense, that 
it must serve the people before it masters them ; that 
while entertainment is its direct, and instruction only its 
indirect object, it must above all things avoid coming 
rudely into conflict with public feeling and public prejudice 
On any subject, especially on so tender a subject as re- 
ligion ; nay, that it must rather, by the very necessity of 
its position, give up the polemic attitude altogether in 
reference to public error and vice, and be content, along 
with many glorious truths, to give immortal currency to 
any sort of puerile and perverse fancy that may be inter- 
woven with the motley texture of popular thought. A 
poet even in modern times, when the great public contains 
every possible variety of small publics, can ill afford to be 
a preacher ; and if he carries his preaching against the 
vices of the age beyond a certain length, he changes his 
genus, and becomes, like Coleridge, a metaphysician, or, 
like Thomas Carlyle, a prophet. But in the Homeric days, 
corresponding as they do so exactly to our mediaeval times, 
when the imaginations of all parties reposed quietly on 
the bosom of a common faith, to suppose, as Herodotus in 
a well-known passage (n. 53), does, that the popular 
minstrel had it in his power to describe for the first time 
the functions of the gods, and to assign them appropriate 
names, were to betray a complete misconception both of the 
nature of popular poetry in general, and of the special char- 
acter of the popular poetry of the Greeks, as we find it in the 
pages of the Iliad and Odyssey, So far as the mere secu- 
lar materials of his songs are concerned, Homer, we have 
the best reason to believe, received much more than he 
gave ; l but in the current theology and religious senti- 

1 Compare the history of the growth revealed by the labours of Jacob Grimm, 
of the famous mediseval Epos "of Key- Foreign Quarterly Review, No. xxxiv. 
nard the Fox," as it has been gradually Art. 3. 



4 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

ment, we have not the slightest authority for supposing that 
he invented anything at all. Amid the various wealth of 
curious and not always coherent religious tradition, he 
might indeed select this and reject that, as more or less 
suited for his immediate purpose ; he might give prominence 
to one aspect of his country's, theology while he threw 
another into the shade ; he might even adorn and beautify 
to some extent what was rude, and here and there lend a 
fixity to what was vague ; * but whatsoever in the popular 
creed was already stable, his airy music had no power to 
shake ; whatsoever in the vulgar tradition had received 
fixed and rigid features, his plastic touch had no power to 
soften. Nay, we are rather certain, that as in the geolo- 
gical formations of later birth, boulders of strange granite 
will sometimes appear, so there are incorporated into the 
body of the Homeric theology, fragments of an older and 
more crude Pelasgic creed, that assort ill with the higher 
organism of the poet's own faith, and the faith of the age 
to which he belonged ; while it seems equally certain, that 
with the large receptive capacity so characteristic of great 
imaginative minds, he had hung up in his mythological 
gallery not a few pictures, to whose original significance 
— whether physical or moral — he in common with the 
heroes of his melody had lost the key. 2 We may there- 
fore attempt an articulate statement of the principal heads 
of Homeric theology, with the most complete conviction 

1 I believe, for instance, that the "Kr-q 2 To the former class may belong 
of II. xix. 91, and ix. 501, so distinctly the strange-sounding myth of Briareus 
an allegorical personage (Nagelsbach, zEgeon delivering Jove from the chains 
p. 67), may have been a creation of the imposed on him by the other gods (77. 
poet's fancy (acting, however, in unison I. 399, on which see Welcker's Anhang 
with the whole tendency of the Greek Trllogie, p. 147) ; to the latter, the de- 
religion), which afterwards becoming scription of the connubial embrace of 
stereotyped, received a prominent indi- Zeus and Hera (II. xiv. 346), on which 
viduality among the persons of the celes- see Miiller. 
tial aristocracy from the tragedians. 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 5 

that we are giving the religious faith of an age and of a 
people, not the private speculations of a person. 

One good use to be made of this consideration is, that 
we shall start on our inquiry in no wise expecting a 
metaphysical precision, or a philosophical consistency in 
all points. Even formal confessions of faith, drawn up by 
subtle systematic theologians, are often far from preserv- 
ing a rigid consistency through all their articles, much 
more the floating variety of an imaginative creed without 
a Bible, like that of the ancient Greeks. Popular poets 
like Homer assert the fundamental moral and religious 
instincts of human nature, without attempting to prove 
them where the foundation may appear weak, or to recon- 
cile them where they may sound contradictory ; and the 
profoundest philosophers have generally contented them- 
selves with doing the same thing, only in a more elaborate 
and ambitious style. 

In setting forth the theological views of the Homeric 
writings, attempts have been made by some writers to 
draw a broad line of distinction between the Iliad and the 
Odyssey. It is alleged that the religious conceptions of 
the former are as inferior to those of the latter, as its 
poetic glow is more intense, its flight of winged words 
more rapid, and its pictures more vivid ; and it is con- 
ceived that this difference, or rather contrast, is so great 
as, along with other considerations, to justify the conclu- 
sion, that these two immortal works were the productions 
neither of one author, nor of the same age. 1 But the 

1 This is the conclusion of Benjamin that are entertained respecting the gods. 

Constant, and of Dr. Ihne, in an other- In the Iliad the men are better than the 

wise admirable paper in Dr. Smith's gods : in the Odyssey, it is the reverse. 

Biographical Dictionary (London 1844), In the latter poem, no mortal dares to 

Art. Homer. "A great and essential dif- resist, much less to attack and wound 

ference, which pervades the whole of the a god ; Olympus does not resound with 

two poems, is observable in the notions everlasting quarrels. Athene consults 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 



minute comparison which I have made of all the passages 
in both poems that have any bearing on religion leads me 
most certainly to the conclusion that such a notion is 
untenable. I shall, on the other hand, I flatter myself, be 
able to prove distinctly, that there is no prominent and 
characteristic feature of Hellenic theology in the one poem 
which does not appear in the other ; and that, though some 
traits of a crude creed are put forward with more glaring 
offensiveness in the Iliad than in the Odyssey, these natu- 
rally arose from the nature of the subjects treated, and 
from the dominancy of its own particular idea over the 



humbly the will of Zeus, and forbears 
offending Poseidon, her uncle, for the 
sake of a mortal man. Whenever a god 
inflicts punishment or bestows protec- 
tion in the Odyssey, it is for some moral 
desert, not as in the Iliad, through mere 
caprice, without any consideration of 
the good or bad qualities of the indivi- 
dual. In the Iliad Zeus sends a dream 
to deceive Agamemnon ; Athene, after 
a geueral consultation of the gods, 
prompts Pandarus to his treachery; 
Paris, the violator of the sacred laws of 
hospitality, is never upbraided with his 
crime by the gods ; whereas, in the 
Odyssey, they appear as the awful 
avengers of those who do not respect 
the laws of the hospitable Zeus. The 
gods of the Iliad live on Mount Olym- 
pus ; those of the Odyssey are farther 
removed from the earth ; they inhabit 
the wide heaven. There is nothing 
which obliges us to think of the Mount 
Olympus. In the Iliad, the gods are 
visible to every one, except when they 
surround themselves with a cloud. In 
the Odyssey, they are usually invisible, 
unless they take the shape of men. In 
short, as Benjamin Constant has well 
observed (de la Relig. in.), there is more 
mythology in the Iliad, and more reli- 
gion in the Odyssey." 

After writing the remarks in the text, 



I lighted on the following admirable 
observations in Nagelsbach, p. 103:— 
"In the Odyssey there is no strife among 
the Olympic gods; for the principal 
divine personages that take interest in 
the action, Zeus and Athena, are united, 
(Od. xxiv. 472) ; and Hera has nothing 
to do with the plot, so that Poseidon 
alone stands on the opposite side. In 
the Iliad, again, the struggle on earth 
is only the counterpart of the struggle 
in heaven. The celestial personages, 
who are independent and free to choose 
their own part, come thus into a itate 
of mutual hate and hostility ; and this 
gives the gods of the Iliad, in appear- 
ance, a different character from those of 
the Odyssey. For all the evil passions, 
which war raises in human breasts, 
must in consequence of this hostile 
attitude be stirred in the bosom of the 
gods, to whose essential nature, holi- 
ness in no sense belongs." The author 
therefore agrees with me, in represent- 
ing the theological system of the Odys.- 
sey and the Iliad, as different only in 
appearance (scheinbar). The italics be- 
long to the author, showing distinctly 
that he placed great weight on the 
word, and is not to be understood for 
a moment as favouring the views of 
Benjamin Constant and Dr. Ihne. 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 7 

general tone and character of each poem. As a song of 
war and battle among mortal men, the Iliad could not 
but exhibit the sympathizing gods as animated by all those 
violent and more or less undignified passions, without 
which war in any shape, and especially in an age of war- 
riors, cannot be conceived to exist ; while, in the Odyssey, 
a narrative of domestic fortunes, and an example of severe 
retribution exercised on the guilty violators of social laws 
in times of peace, it could not but be that the poet should 
cause the motley confusion of inferior Olympic personages 
to recede before the awful presence of Jove the avenger, 
and his wise daughter Athena. 1 

These preliminary observations may be necessary to 
anticipate misconception in the minds of some, whose par- 
ticular line of study may not have familiarized them with 
investigations of this kind. Without further preface, I 
now proceed to state the theological system of Homer as 
compactly as I may be able in a series of propositions. 

Proposition i. — The gods are a race of beings exter- 
nally of human form and appearance, but in quality and 
energy superior to mortal men, enjoying an existence 
supremely blissful in its nature (peia faovres, II. vi. 138), 

1 " In the Odyssey," says Archdeacon the adventures of the far-wandering 
Williams (Homeros, App.,) "thereseems Ulysses, as he himself intimates in the 
to have been embodied the Homeric invocation. That he was able to inter- 
creed concerning the social and political weave this story of marvellous adven- 
duties of man, and the certain punish- tures with a grand exhibition of retri- 
ment which is sooner or later to over- butive justice on the part of Jove 
take the impenitent violators of the shows at once to what order of poets 
moral law." Of the justice of this re- he belonged ; proves that he was one 
mark there can be no doubt ; only it of those who so incorporate light enter- 
must always be borne in mind that, tainment with serious instruction, that 
though this creed is most certainly em- it is hard to say, whether it be their 
bodied in the poem, the exposition of it main object to help the trifling to sea- 
was not the only, perhaps not the main, son a ^istless hour, or the serious to 
object of the bard in composing his solve a moral problem, 
poem. His simple object was to sing 



8 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

and controlled by no superior power ; the wide welkin is 
their habitation, and Mount Olympus in Thessaly, their 
home. That which most peculiarly distinguishes them 
from human beings is their immortality (fid/capes Oeol alev 
iovres, Od. v. 7) ; by which, however, is meant, not that 
they have always existed, but that when once they begin 
to exist, they may not in anywise cease to exist. Though 
begotten like men, and holding their power by right of 
succession from more ancient celestial dynasties no longer 
acknowledged, they are not subject to death or mutation ; 
and their dominion, once established, can never pass 
away. 

In stating this proposition, I have followed Nagels- 
bach 1 in specifying immortality as that attribute by which 
the divine nature, according to the Homeric conception, 
is most distinguished from the human. For though, as 
we shall see afterwards, the attribute of power compara- 
tively infinite belonging to the highest gods stands in a 
no less striking contrast to the weakness of mortals, than 
their eternal blessedness to our ephemeral and sorrow- 
chequered existence, yet this extraordinary degree of 
power is by no means possessed by all the gods, and some 
of the inferior tribes of them are not a tall remarkably 
endowed in this way : immortality, however, of soul and 
body, without the necessity of that sorrowful change which 
we call death, characterizes all the superhuman race, from 
Zeus to Calypso, and forms the most prominent quality 
that distinguishes them from mortal men. In most other 
respects they are human enough in their passions, their 
purposes, and their actions ; and indeed it is this humanity 
which makes them not only take such an ardent interest 
in all human affairs, but even leads them to seek that con- 

1 Homerische Theologie, Niirenberg, 1840, p. 38. 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 9 

nexion with mortal women, from which one of the greatest 
blessings of earth, a race of heroes and demi-gods, is pro- 
duced. With regard to their origin, Homer is not at all 
curious, practical piety, not metaphysical theology, being 
his province ; he only indicates in the line (II. xrv. 201), 

^fliceavov re Oecov yeveo-tv kclL firjTepa Trj6vv, 
that they are all descended from the two sea-powers, 
Ocean and Tethys, as from a common father and mother. 
He also intimates with sufficient clearness, that they did 
not arrive at the height of power where they now stand 
without passing through previous struggles and convul- 
sions of a very serious kind (the struggle with Kronos and 
the Titans, II. xiv. 204, vni. 479) ; but, once established, 
he has no idea (such as that with which Prometheus feeds 
his pride in JEschylus) that they can ever be overthrown, 
any more than a Christian has that the world can ever 
revert from Christianity to Judaism. In reference to 
their habitation, though they are generally styled in the 
Odyssey ovpavbv evpvv e^oz/re? (a style, however, occurring 
also in the Iliad, xxi. 267), there is not the least 
foundation for Dr. Ihne's remark, that this designation 
furnishes one ground of distinction between the theo- 
logy of the Odyssey and that of the Iliad, as if that of 
the former were of a more spiritual and refined nature ; 
for a Mount Olympus is distinctly described in Od. I. 102, 

ftrj Be tear ovKv puiroio fcaprjvoov al'^acra, 

in the very language of the Iliad (iv. 74, xxu. 187), be- 
sides Od. v. 50, vi. 42, and other places where Olympus 
is mentioned (and okv/nria Bco/juara, xxiii. 167), without the 
slightest reason to suppose that anything else can be 
meant than the Mount Olympus of the Iliad. 

Proposition ii. — The gods are the supreme rulers of 



10 ON THE THEOLOGY VF HOMER: 

the world, the dispensers of good and evil to men, and 
the directors of their fates. 

A habitual piety, characterized by the special refer- 
ence of all events in life, whether prosperous or ad- 
verse, to the divine providence, is not less characteristic 
of the writings of Homer than of the Old Testament 
Scriptures ; and, indeed, this is one of the many 
remarkable and extremely interesting points of resem- 
blance, that strike the most superficial reader in works 
otherwise so dissimilar in their tone, and opposite in their 
tendency. "Nothing," says Nagelsbach (p. 53), "is fur- 
ther from the Homeric man than to look upon himself as 
isolated and separated from the gods, or to look on the 
divine government as a dead system of laws and rules 
once for all implanted into the nature of things. The 
relation of men to the gods is rather to be looked on as 
an uninterrupted living intercourse/' And accordingly, 
we find that whatsoever a man is and enjoys is constantly 
and instinctively attributed by Homer to the gods, as if 
it could not be otherwise ; birth, marriage, and death 
(Od. iv. 7, 12, xvi. 211); health (v. 397), and strength 
(II. I. 178) ; good and bad weather (Od. iv. 351) ; luxuries 
(vn. 132) ; good sport in hunting (ix. 158) ; and even a 
good jest and a hearty laugh (xviii. 37). In the same 
way every sort of bad luck is immediately referred to the 
wrath of a god ; as when a marksman misses his aim 
(II. v. 191, viii. 311), or when a fleet runner slips his 
foot, even where the direct cause of the fall may be quite 
evident (xxiii. 782). The Homeric man is always more 
deeply impressed with the first and originating than with 
the second and mediating cause of things. The old Hel- 
lenic voyager knows that he has been driven out of his 
course by the east or other unfavourable wind; but the 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 11 

Zeus or Poseidon who caused the wind to blow is the 
grand object of his attention, — and so of everything else. 
In consistency with this view, all persons who enjoy great 
prosperity, that is, on whom the gods shower many gifts, 
are said to be dear, and very dear (fiaXa </>/Xot, Od. vi. 203) 
to the gods : while misfortunes are a manifest evidence of 
the celestial disfavour (iv. 755, II. VI. 200); and in the 
same way, if a person is distinguished by any natural gift, 
as Helen by beauty, he is said to be dear to the god or 
goddess from whom, as from a divine perennial fountain, 
this gift flows. As to phraseology, 6eol, 6eos, 0eo? ™?, and 
Balpcov, seem to be used indiscriminately by the poet, 
when talking of the divine source of all the good that men 
enjoy, or the evil that they suffer ; often, also, the par- 
ticular deity is named through whose instrumentahty, as 
standing in a peculiar relation to this or that human 
being, the blessing is dispensed. In this way Athena 
appears everywhere as the presiding deity of the Odyssey. 
She sends sleep to Penelope (i. 364), speeds the departure 
of Telemachus (n. 382, 420), and is with the hero in all 
the critical turns of the perilous and bloody catastrophe. 

Proposition hi. — This providence, or supreme con- 
trol of all human things by the gods, is not confined 
merely to the circumstances of the external world by 
which human happiness or misery is affected, but reaches 
also all the thoughts, purposes, and passions of men ; 
which thoughts, purposes, and passions, accordingly, the 
evil and the good indifferently, are looked upon as the 
direct effect of an immediate divine agency ; specially, 
however, all great and glorious thoughts, and impulses 
leading to actions of extraordinary energy and excellence, 
come from a god ; and these actions themselves, though 



1-2 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

achieved visibly by mere human agency, are ovk avev dew, 
not without the instigation, assistance, and directing 
control of the gods. 

It is remarked by some theologian, — I forget by whom, 
— that among all the objections made by the heathen philo- 
sophers to the doctrines of the Gospel, no exception was 
ever taken to the doctrine of divine influence, or the opera- 
tion of the Holy Ghost on the human mind. This doctrine, 
which has been looked upon in modern times by Arminians, 
Pelagians, and others, with a sort of jealousy, could not 
excite any suspicion, or appear even in the light of a 
novelty, in an age when all the higher minds in the moral 
world were initiated into the philosophy of Plato or Zeno, 1 
and when the great Catholic Bible of popular religious 
tradition, viz., Homer, recognised the doctrine of direct 
spiritual action of the divine mind on the human as one of 
its most familiar truths. That a man's genius and inclina- 
tions are all divinely implanted is a truth sufficiently 
obvious, and which, stated as an abstract proposition, few 
men now-a-days will deny ; but the difference between our 
time and the Homeric in this matter lies not so much in 
any abstract doctrine as in the comparative frequency of a 
correspondent phraseology in his language, and its un- 
frequency in ours. Thus, for instance, when Ulysses (Od. 
XIV. 227) says : — 

avrap ejioi ra <j)i\ eatce ra ttov 6eo<$ ev (j>pecrl Ofjtcev 
aWos yap t aXkoicnv avr\p eTTLTepireraL epyow, 

he uses in the first line a distinctly marked Homeric 

1 No doubt there was a something of isolate man from the divine mind, on 

self-containedness in the Stoic, which which he depends, may be seen from 

did not so readily suit devout connec- the arguments put into the mouth of 

tion with the divine mind, as the high Balbus by Cicero, in the second book 

aspirations of the Platonist ; but how de Natura Deorum. 
far the Stoics were from wishing to 









ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 13 

phraseology, while the second line contains only what any 
of us in our common talk might say any day, and what in 
fact we do say every day. " Those things are dear to me 
which a god fut into my heart " — this style refers the 
likings and dislikings of the human heart directly to a 
divine influence ; while the other proposition, " one man 
delights in one thing, another in another,'' merely as- 
serts a human fact without giving any hint of its divine 
causation. Now, the habitual assertion of this divine 
causation in all the more notable movements of the 
human mind is one of the grand prominent features 
of that atmosphere of religion (or religiosity, as some 
may prefer to say) which gives such a peculiar 
colour to the Homeric epos. In the language of an 
obsolete criticism (perhaps not yet altogether obsolete 
in certain quarters), the Olympian personages are termed 
the " machinery " of the poem ; if this word, however, is 
to be used, it is much more near the truth to say that, in 
Homer's view, the mortal men are everywhere the mere 
machinery of the great drama of existence of which the 
gods are the real actors. The constant occurrence in the 
Homeric page, with reference to human purposes, of such 
phrases as evl 6v/ia> ftaWeiv (Od. I. 200), eV2 (f>peai 6fJKe 
(v. 427), vdrjfjLa irolr^cre (XIV. 273), Oeov v7rodr]/ioavvrjcrtv (XVI. 
233), and eviirvevae (jypeal Salficov (XIX. 138), shows how 
familiar to the old Hellenic mind was that famous senti- 
ment afterwards expressed by Cicero : — " Nemo vir mag- 
nus sine aliquo qfflatu divino unquamfuit ; " and not only 
so, but a sentiment far more extensive than this, viz., that 
a man can in fact think nothing worth thinking, except 
by virtue of a direct divine impulse or inspiration. This 
is a method of viewing things to which the somewhat 
mechanical English mind (since the days of Cromwell at 



!4f ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER: 

least) has shown a great aversion ; } but how far it is 
from being contrary to a high Christian philosophy, the 
single text, Luke xn. 12, may suffice to show. But 
Homer, in his views of divine influence, is far from stop- 
ping where the language of a pious Puritan of the six- 
teenth century, or a fervid evangelical of the present day, 
mutatis mutandis, would readily go along with him. He, 
in fact, goes so far as to attribute foolish, and even vicious 
actions, to an impulse proceeding from above, to such an 
extent as seemingly to destroy altogether the idea of 
human responsibility. When, for instance, a man thought- 
lessly (d<f>paSe(os, Od. xiv. 481) goes out without his cloak 
on a frosty night, so that he is in danger of dying, or at 
least catching severe rheumatism from cold, he exclaims 
quite naturally, irapa /J fadfe Balpcov, a god deceived me 
that I did this thing. This is a very peculiar phraseology, 
and sounds to a modern ear very strange, from an author 
whose general tone, as we have said, is sufficiently devout. 
And in like manner, instead of exclaiming, as a modern 
Englishman would, what a fool am II Telemachus, when 
reviewing his conduct, says, truly Zeus hath made me a 
fool! (Od. xxi. 102.) Nor is this all: Antinous, when 
blaming Penelope for wilful obstinacy and evil cunning, 
instead of confining the blame to her, which would have 
pointed more keenly his reproach, does not hesitate to 

1 Some, however, of our most prac- have made any observations of things 

tical writers, have not hesitated to will deny ; that they are certain dis- 

assert a belief in presentiments and coveries of an invisible converse and a 

warnings divinely impressed on the world of spirits, we cannot doubt ; and 

souL Thus De Foe, in Robinson if the tendency of them seems to be 

Crusoe, writes, — "Let no man despise to warn us of danger, why should we 

the secret hints and notices of danger not suppose they are from some friendly 

which sometimes are given him, when agent (whether supreme, or inferior and 

he may think there is no possibility subordinate, is not the question), and 

of its being real. That such hints and they are given for our good ?" 
notices are given us, I believe few that 



QN THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 15 

name the gods as the true authors of her so reprehensible 
conduct (ovrwa qI vovv ev <rrr\Qe<jai ridelcn Oeoi) ; and stronger 
still, the fair Helen, whose infidelity to her Spartan lord 
brought so many woes on her countrymen, and sent so 
many noble souls to Hades, speaks of her own conduct 
with the utmost coolness, as having been the result of a 
pernicious infatuation (arrjv) placed in her heart by 
Aphrodite ; 1 and in this judgment old Priam (//. in. 164), 
who might be expected to be a more severe moralist, fully 
agrees : — 

ovTe fioc airlr] eaar Oeoi, vv fioc cutloi eicriv* 

This sentiment, indeed, that not the doers of an evil deed, 
but the gods who inspire the purpose of doing it, are the 
real criminals, seems a standard commonplace in the 
Homeric morality ; for Agamemnon (II. xix. 86, a famous 
passage to which we shall have again occasion to refer) 
uses it with regard to the unhappy cause of his breach 
with Achilles. After such passages, one might be apt to 
think that the doctrine of divine influence in Homer was 
such as to confound light with darkness, and obliterate 
the universal instincts of the human breast with regard 
to right and wrong ; and that it did so to a certain ex- 
tent, as well in the Homeric days as in the days of Puri- 
tan enthusiasm, to which reference has been made, is 
not to be doubted ; but as the world is full of mysteries, 
and the human heart full of contradictions, we must not 
rush to a hasty conclusion in this matter, till we come to 
treat specially of human responsibility, of the dependence 
of morals on religion, and of the punishment due to evil 
works. In the Old Testament, also, we read that " God 
hardened Pharaoh's heart " (Exod. vii. 3), and that " the 

1 Contrast this language with that of the apostle James (i. 13), with regard 
to temptation. " 



16 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

Lord sent a lying prophet " to a certain Hebrew king 
(i Kings xxii. 22, apud Wolf. Proleg. 37). Mere surface 
consideration will not settle matters of this kind, lying as 
they do so deep in the darkest roots of our moral nature, 
which our finite wit certainly will never be able, in all 
points, with complete satisfaction to fathom. 

Proposition iv. — The gods are in an especial manner 
the authors of all extraordinary phenomena in nature, as 
also of all events of which there is no visible human 
agency, or to which human agency is considered in- 
adequate. 

Strictly speaking, according to the religious philosophy 
so characteristic of the Homeric age, there is no part of 
nature, or of the vast system of things, which is not 
sacred or divine, — the sea, the shore, the land, the night, 
the day, are all governed by a god, and inspired with 
whatsoever is great or beautiful in them by a special 
divine energy ; polytheism being, in fact, only a ramified 
and variously divided pantheism ; but in the common, 
and anything but strictly philosophical style of talking 
which Homer uses, only the grandest objects and more 
striking phenomena of nature are specially referred to a 
direct divine energy. It is not poetry, as the Bishop of 
Thessalonica has it (irapeicfiokai, vol. i. p. 9, edit. Roman.), 
but the general style of thinking and feeling in the 
Homeric age, of which it may be justly said, that irav to 
iraprjWayfjievov /ecu gevc&v kcu e^alperov, kcu repdariov rj kcu 
reparco&es et9 to Oeiov yevos kcu eU Oeov airoKaOiaTa. There 
is a natural and deeply-seated tendency in all men at all 
times to recognise God in strange, startling, and unac- 
countable phenomena ; while in the more plain and in- 
telligible manifestations of his every-day power, he is apt 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER, 17 

to be overlooked. Even the severe Stoics admitted the 
justness of the argument for the existence of the gods 
drawn from this tendency (see the words of Cleanthes 
in Cic. de Nat Deorum, n. 5) ; but in Homer it en- 
counters us at every turn. The whole science of augury, 
and the interpretation of omens, so necessary at every 
critical moment in Homer, depends on this principle. 
Hence also it is that dreams, especially remarkable 
dreams, which are altogether independent of our common 
reason and volition, come from Jove (II. I. 63), or from 
some other god (Od. iv. 796). Hence also madness is 
ascribed directly to the gods (/idpyrjv ae Oeol 6iaav, Od. 
xxiii. 11), and all violent exertions of energy akin to 
madness (ov% 6 y avevOe Bewv rdZe fialvercu, 11. V. 187). 
Poetry especially, as one of the most striking effects of 
what we call genius as opposed to talent, is the direct 
product of divine teaching (Od. xxn. 347). Even we 
in modern times, talk in a loose sort of way of the 
inspiration of the divine Shakespeare ; but such was 
the reverence of the old Ionic minstrel and his age for 
every manifestation of the divine power in the masque 
of humanity, that he could talk with a more serious 
and pregnant religious meaning of the inspiration of a 
ship-carpenter or a shoemaker than we do of a great 
poet. A swineherd to him was more divine than a high 
priest or a hero is to us. But especially all extraordinary 
events, inexplicable effects without any apparent cause, 
are the plain operation of a god, as if a fair marksman 
should shoot twenty arrows at a mark, and all should 
fail ! In such an extraordinary result, even a child, koI 
o? fidXa vrprios earcv (II. xvii. 629), may discern the finger 
of a god. And in extraordinary escapes from imminent 
danger, in sudden and unaccountable disappearances of 

B 



18 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

persons well known, not man, or ordinary causes, but 
the gods themselves \6eol avrol with emphasis, Od. xxiv. 
400), are plainly at work. On the same principle sudden 
and painless deaths are ascribed with an especial emphasis 
to the shafts of Apollo and Artemis (Od. xv. 410). In 
one word, all uncommon things are more divine than 
what is common, and very uncommon things are explicable 
only on the supposition of an extraordinary divine inter- 
position for the nonce. 

Pboposition v. — From all that has been said on the 
extent and variety of the influence of the gods on human 
fates and affairs, it plainly follows that the Greeks, in 
their theology, have no place for a being corresponding 
to our Christian idea of the Devil, as a powerful super- 
mundane spirit, energetic for evil, and for evil only ; so 
that the significant English phrases of, " the devil '§ in 
the fellow, — to play the devil with a thing" are expressed 
in Homeric (and also in general) Greek, by the phrases, 
" a god's in the fellow, — a god's in the business." 

This proposition is a necessary corollary from what 
has been already -stated in Propositions n. and in; ; but 
there is no harm in its standing here separately, as it 
serves to bring out with greater distinctness the contrast 
between ancient Homeric and modern English ways of 
thinking. Let it be understood, then, as a most charac- 
teristic trait in the system of Homeric theology, that there 
is, and can be no devil, properly so called ; for the very 
plain reason, that the same gods are the general authors 
of evil and good to men, and serve them now with the 
right hand now with the left, as the Muse served the 
Phseacian bard Demodocus, giving him sweet song, but 
taking away the light of his eyes : — 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 19 

Tov Trip i Mova ecjitXTjae BiBov B ayaOov re kclkov re 
o(f>6a\jJi(ov [Mev apuepcre, BlBov B rjBelav aoiBr]V. 

Hence the striking difference in the Jewish and Greek 
methods of expression with reference to the common 
phenomena of disease. The Jew said of a woman bent 
with weakness, and unable to look up with the common 
privilege of humanity to the skies, that she was bound by 
Satan (Luke xiii. 11, 16) ; the Greek, of one pining under 
a protracted and painful illness, that he was plied by a 
hateful god {arvyepos Be ol e%pae Balpicov, Od. V. 396), or 
simply that one cannot escape a disease sent from mighty 
Jove (ix. 411). Nor is the arvyepos in the passage just 
quoted, or the kclkos in another (x. 64), applied to BalfMov, 
indicative in any sense of a special cacodcemon, or spirit 
essentially evil, like the unclean spirits of the New 
Testament, such as the later theology of Greece might 
acknowledge ; these designations in Homer are only de- 
scriptive expletives, which, for all theological purposes, 
had as well been omitted. The only semblance, indeed, 
of a real devil in Homer is that v Att) already mentioned 
(II. xix. 91), on whom Agamemnon so unceremoniously 
throws the blame of his untoward quarrel with the swift- 
footed son of Thetis ; but even of her, and in the time 
of the tragedians, the Greeks never speak as of the source 
of evil, but only as a source. In Homer, however, she 
is an allegory, scarcely less transparent than the Harpies 
or the Krjpes, where we find the polytheistic fancy of the 
early Greeks in the very act of impersonating and in- 
carnating the gods of a future generation ; 1 and in the 
very passage where so much is made of her in the shape 

1 " In Krjp, and some other such. sons ; for never in these cases is the 

words, we catch fancy engaged in the image completely finished, and clad 

work of shaping forth ill-understood, with the full personality of a perfect 

incalculable effects, into separate per- god." — Nitzsch, on Odyss. in. 236. 



20 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

of a distinct person, the infatuation, which is said to have 
been the result of her evil inspiration, is ascribed in the 
common phraseology of the Homeric men to Jove, — ml 
fiev (j>peva? efeWo Zeis (xix. 137). The old minstrel who 
first worked out this divine personage from the common 
state of mind, or result of a state of mind denominated 
arrj, which any of the gods might produce (Od. iv. 261 ; 
II. ix. 18), was in the fair way, had the popular creed 
allowed him, to have worked out a Hellenic Trinity akin 
to that of the Hindus, with Ate for its Siva ; but he 
made not the most distant approach to the Christian idea 
of the devil. The bard of the Iliad, had he written the 
gospel history, might have said that Ate put it into the 
heart of Judas Iscariot to betray Christ (John xiii. 2) ; 
but he might have said with equal, or rather greater 
readiness, that Jove or any of the gods had deprived him 
of his senses, and driven him to do this act. In the 
Christian theology, God is essentially opposed to the 
Devil ; in Homeric language, Jove and Ate are convertible 
terms. 

Proposition vi. — Zeus is the supreme ruler both of 
gods and men, and stands to the former exactly in the 
same relation that an absolute monarch does to the aris- 
tocracy of which he is the head. His will is the grand 
originating centre of all great movements in the physical 
and moral world; and besides the peculiar functions which 
he exercises as god of the upper air, he has a general 
superintendence over the conduct of all the other gods, 
and over all the thoughts, purposes, and actions of men. 
He is in an especial manner the friend and protector of 
those who have none to help them, and the enforcer of all 
the great rights and duties by which the framework of 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 21 

society is knit together. He is the rewarder of those 
who do well, and the punisher of those who do evil. 

The supremacy of Jove, as stated in this proposition, 
is the strong key-stone of the polytheistic arch in Homer, 
without which, indeed, polytheism in heaven, like a pure 
democracy on earth, would be sure to start asunder, and 
rush blindly into absolute chaos and dissolution. It in- 
troduces in fact, to an extent greater than is generally 
imagined, for many practical uses, the monotheistic prin- 
ciple into polytheism. The right of the son of Kronos to 
this high position is founded, by Homer, on the single 
fact of his superior strength, just as the right of Agamem- 
non to be king of men stands upon no other foundation, 
so far as one can see, than that he is the strongest among 
the strong (II. i. 281). The most notable passage in 
which this doctrine is stated is that famous appeal made 
to the assembled deities by the celestial autocrat himself 
in the beginning of Iliad viii., where he tells them plainly, 
that if they were to suspend a golden chain from heaven, 
and endeavour to pull the Father down, they would not 
succeed with all their united endeavours ; while, on the 
other hand, if he were to fix the one end of the chain 
round a crag of Olympus, he would hold, all the gods 
dangling in vacancy at the other end, with earth and sea 
to boot ! — 

toggov eyco irept t et/M decov, irepi t elfjb avOpwircov. 

This is a homely, and to us an infantile simile ; but it ex- 
presses significantly enough the central celestial fact, to 
which, as a pole-star, all the conflicting and divergent 
materials of both the epics are made finally to point. In 
the Odyssey the jealous wrath of Poseidon against the 
tempest-tost hero is at length forced to yield to the con- 



22 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

summated counsels of the supreme Father, and his like- 
minded daughter (Odys. xxiv. 477). In the Iliad the 
Aibs 8' ereXelero fiov\rj, with which the song is commenced, 
rides over the whole action with a dominancy, only the 
more triumphant that it meets with constant and com- 
bined opposition from the strongest of the other Olympian 
powers, specially Poseidon the brother, Hera the spouse, 
and Athena the unmothered daughter of the great Olym- 
pian ; but the more that these inferior deities fret and chafe 
against the divine decrees of the Thunderer, with the more 
unshaken serenity does the high administrator of war to 
men (ra^i^ irdxifioio, II. iv. 84) sit on his throne apart 
(II. I, 499), and over the murmurs of hostile gods, and the 
heaps of dead and dying men, measure with his thought 
the march of his high purpose till it be fulfilled (II. xi. 
80). All the passages in the Iliad that seem to indicate 
anything contrary to this practical supremacy of Jove's 
high will in heaven and in earth, when accurately ex- 
amined, throw their weight into the opposite scale. Of 
all the gods, Poseidon is that one who, with the fairest 
show of reason, might have asserted his right to control 
the obnoxious decrees of the Olympian ; but the "liberty, 
equality, and fraternity " of which he boasts in one famous 
passage (II. xv. 185), like its human counterpart in 
modern French democracy, is found to exist only in 
theory ; when the hour comes for action, he is as ready as 
Diomede, or any mortal man, to say, 

ovk av eycoy eOeXoi/ni Ad Kpovlcovi fxa^eaOai 
rjfieas tov$ aWovs, eireir] ttoXv <f>eprep6<; ecrriv. 

11. VIII. 210. 

With which compare xv. 211. In viii. 440, where he acts 
as equerry to Jove, his inferiority is yet more markedly 
shown. As little can be made out of the famous myth of 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 23 

Briareus JEgeon (II. I. 396) against the absolute supremacy 
of the Father. Here, also, the three most important mem- 
bers of the celestial assembly, Hera, Poseidon, and Pallas, 
are leagued against Jove, and wish to bind him. But 
he is delivered from this formidable conspiracy, says the 
myth, by the sea-goddess Thetis, and the hundred-armed 
strong man of the floods (see Welcker, p. 4, above), and de 
facto, he still remains supreme. In a similar strain, we 
are told that the stout Thracian Lycurgus so frightened 
Dionysos, that he was obliged to take refuge in the sea, 
and in the bosom of the same Thetis (II. vi. 135) ; but 
with all this display of momentary weakness, the divine 
power of the wine-god over men waxed strong, and an 
unblissful end was his who dared to strive with immortals. 
These monstrous myths, bearing as they do some analogy 
to the portentous figments of the Hindus (see the Curse 
of Kehama), were in all probability invented by the licen- 
tious imagination of rude religionists for the express pur- 
pose of magnifying the power of the gods, by showing 
that though they could be humbled and even persecuted 
for a season, they must certainly triumph in the end. 
Besides that, such rich collections of popular tradition as 
are incorporated into the Homeric poems cannot pos- 
sibly be expected to be homogeneous in all details. The 
comprehensive genius of the arch-minstrel whom we 
call Homer, has doubtless taken into his caldron some 
strange materials which he could not, or cared not to 
fuse. Homer was not professionally a theologian, but a 
poet ; and if in some parts of his works he has admitted 
tales of the gods not altogether consistent with the more 
exalted character of his general theology, he has only 
erred, as the most pious poets will err, when more intent 
on sport for the moment than on edification, i : L. ... 



24 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

One circumstance which more than any other tends to 
show how much of the monotheistic element was practically 
inwoven with heathenism, is the habitual reference to Zeus 
when there is no special call for mentioning his name more 
than that of any other deity. The passages are innumerable, 
where Jove, as the ordinary administrator of the world, is 
said to send sorrow or sadness, blessing or bane, when the 
polytheistic phraseology Oeol would have been equally ap- 
propriate (Od. in. 132; iv. 34, 208). He indeed it was 
whom the pious heathen was taught by the Homeric 
poetry habitually to look up to, as the dispenser of all the 
bounties of Providence on which the existence and the 
happiness of man depends. 

Zevs $' avros vefiei o\fiov OXu/jlttios avOpanroiaiv 
'J£a6\o7<; tJSc Kdfcolcrtv, biTco? eOekrjaiv ' ifcd<rT(p. 

Od. VI. 188. 

But it is as the supreme moral governor of the universe 
that the monotheistic influence of Zeus is chiefly manifest. 
All the other Olympian gods were elemental or material 
powers, personations of vast wavy tides of physical or 
sensuous surges, but without law or restraint, subordina- 
tion or rule. Poseidon is then most himself, when his 
white-crested billow spits wrath most bitterly ; Aphrodite 
has her special glory when the strongest man, a Csesar or 
a Napoleon, is for a season unmanned by the witchery of 
a pretty face ; the triumph of such gods is the triumph 
of mere unreined impulse, physical or moral as the case 
may be ; but Jove, besides his physical virtue as ruler of 
the sky and lord of the thunder, knows and acknowledges 
law, and by his patronage of social rights and duties, re- 
claims man from savagery, and renders society possible. 
This is everywhere most distinctly indicated both in the 
Iliad and the Odyssey, but especially in the Odyssey, 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 25 

whose moral and retributive character, as already re- 
marked, has been justly pointed out by Archdeacon Wil- 
liams. The connexion between Zeus and Themis is pro- 
minently set forth in Iliad xx. 4 ; and when, in the 
second book of the Odyssey, Telemachus, having called a 
public assembly of the islanders, is about to state the 
wrongs which he suffered at the hand of the suitors, he 
commences most solemnly by an invocation of Jove and 
Themis, without whose presidency an dyopd could not 
exist, — 

AicraofJbai rj/juev Ztjvos OXv/juttcov rj8e Qe/juaTos 
rjT dvSpcov ayopas rjfiev Xvei r/Se KaOt^ec. 

The statutes (OejuaTe?) of Zeus (R I. 239) exercise a strong 
influence in the Odyssey, even over godless men, prevent- 
ing them from proceeding to those extremes of bloody 
daring which lead directly to the subversion of all society, 
and the confusion of all right (Odys. xvi. 403) ; and it is 
only such ferocious cannibals as the Cyclopes vj3pcaral re 
Koi aypiot ovBe Slicaiot,, who altogether disregard them, and 
in a state of unsocial independence do every one what is 
right in his own eyes (Od. ix. 112). The supreme god 
further strengthens the links of society, by conferring on 
earthly kings a divine title to rule on earth, judging be- 
tween the right and the wrong (II. ix. 99), similar to 
what himself enjoys in Olympus : 

TifjLT) t ex Ai6<$ eari, (j>i\el Be e /irjTLeTa Zevs. — II. II. 197. 

And king-killing to the Homeric chiefs was no light busi- 
ness (Od. xvi. 401), any more than to the Puritans who 
sat in earnest and prayerful judgment over the ill-starred 
Charles. We may observe further, in respect to the 
moral functions of Zeus, that it is his high prerogative to 
visit with retribution unrighteous deeds of whatsoever 



26 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

description ; he is the avenging Jove, and the giver of 
just recompence to all who have been unrighteously 
treated either in their persons or property (Odys: i. .379 ; 
77. in. 321). He is, moreover, specially invoked to sanc- 
tion the obligation of an oath (Od. xix. 303 ; II. in. 276); 
he protects with special care the houseless wanderer, and 
penceless mendicant (Od. vi. 207), and with the signifi- 
cant surname of Ik€ttjo-co<; keeps an open ear for the cries 
of the friendless suppliant. He protects the rights of 
hospitality under the hallowed title of EeW? (Od. xiv. 
283), and his altar lends a sacredness to the domestic 
hearth (xxn. 335). Whatsoever, in short, either in the 
shape of stern law or of mild equity, renders man an object 
of interest and of love to man, comes from Jove. He is 
God in a sense that belongs to no other deity. Without 
him men would be wild beasts, life an uninterrupted war, 
and Olympus a sublime bedlam. 

Proposition vii. — Though the absolute power of Jove 
is not to be questioned by any of the gods, and all oppo- 
sition to his supreme will vain, yet in the general course 
of his divine government, a large liberty of action is 
allowed to all the members of the celestial aristocracy, 
who have each his separate rights, with which, except on 
great occasions, and for high providential purposes, Jove 
will not willingly interfere ; and thus an individual god 
may often be found involved in a course of action opposed 
4b the will of Jove, and persevering for a long time in 
this course of opposition, till in the fulness of the destined 
years (irepufKofievcov Ivlclvtwv, Od. I. 16), he submits him- 
self to the will of Jove, and the general council of the 
gods. 

A notable example of this we have in the conduct of 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 27 

Poseidon throughout the Odyssey (i. 19, and many other 
places), which of itself is sufficient to show the fallacy of 
Dr. Ihne's remark, that in the Odyssey "Olympus does 
not resound with everlasting quarrels." This circum- 
stance, that there is less of brawl and bickering in the 
Olympic assembly of the Odyssey, is, as we have observed, 
purely accidental, and resulting from the nature of the 
subject ; for Poseidon, the most important member of the 
celestial senate next to Zeus, is as active and unabated in 
his hostility in the one poem as in the other. A division 
of the celestial counsels is, in fact, the natural, and un- 
avoidable result of a polytheistic system of divine govern- 
ment, and the supreme ruler will be more or less thwarted 
in carrying out his views, just as on earth most monarchies 
which are nominally absolute, are in practice limited by 
the aristocracy of whatever nature, hereditary or bureau- 
cratic, that encircles the throne ; and in this matter of 
government, as in all other points except immortality, the 
Homeric heaven is only the highest power of the Homeric 
earth. If our nice modern sense of propriety is startled 
by the rude language which Achilles casts in the teeth of 
the king of men (II. I. 225), we cannot expect to find 
speech much more courteous in the mouth even of the 
wise Athena, when she stands in a hostile relation to her 
father Jove (//. vm. 360) ; and if Jupiter's one daughter 
Ate (like the homunculus in the second part of Faust 1 ), 
turns her pernicious activity against the mighty father 
that bore her (7Z. xix. 95), it is only because, in heroic 
and feudal times, such ungracious things are sometimes 
done on earth, and because man has, in all ages, been 
fond of being governed by gods, created as much as may 

1 " Am Ende hangen wir doch ab 
Von Creaturen die wir maehten." 



28 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

be in his own likeness. Liberty of thought and feeling, 
speech and action, belongs as essentially to the gods in 
heaven, as to men on earth ; and it is only when this 
liberty is carried so far as to threaten the dissolution of 
the firm framework of things, that the omnipotent will 
of Zeus interferes to prevent fatal collisions, and to restore 
a necessary peace. We are not, therefore, to be surprised 
at the great length of tether allowed to Poseidon (II 
xiii. 10, xiv. 510), when Jove is absent among the milk- 
fed just men of Thrace ; nay, it is plain that the theore- 
tical omnipotence of Zeus is sometimes practically limited 
by the decidedly expressed dissent of the other gods, as, 
for instance, in the matter of Sarpedon (II. xvi. 440), 
and in the often repeated threat, ep$* arap ov roc 7rdvre<i 
eiraLviofiev Qeoi aWoi. In another very singular passage, to 
which we shall have to recur (II. iv. 1-72), something of 
the nature of compromise, from motives of mere expediency 
and for the sake of peace, regulates the conduct of the 
omnipotent Olympian at a most important crisis of the 
strife ; in fact, Zeus here comports himself less like an 
absolute monarch than like a prime minister of such an 
aristocratic constitution as that of Great Britain, who, 
when he appears to lead the nation, is in fact led by a 
party. These are inconsistencies, which it was not 
Homer's business, and therefore it cannot be ours, to 
reconcile ; we only remark that " die Welt ist voller 
Widerspriiche" — the world is full of contradictions, as a 
wise German poet sings ; and that that philosopher is by 
no means nearest the truth, whose cosmologic doctrine is 
the most simple and the most consistent. 

Our next propositions shall proceed to set forth more 
distinctly some of the most striking of the divine attri- 
butes, as exhibited in the pages of Homer. 



OX THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 29 

Proposition" viii. — Next to immortality, that which 
most strikingly distinguishes the gods from mortal men 
is power. Though not formally omnipotent, no pious 
mind will allow itself to suppose a limitation to their 
power. In this quality alone no mortal man can dare to 
enter into competition with them. In moral qualities 
they seem to stand pretty much on a level with their 
worshippers. 

'Tis an old saying of the philosophers with regard to 
popular religions — 

" Primus in orbe deos fecit Timor :" 
and with regard to the baser sort of minds, that is, the 
majority (ol iroWol kcucol), it is no doubt true. Cleanthes, 
in Cicero (de Nat. Deor. n. 5), states as the third of the 
four causes why the belief of the gods is universal amongst 
men, this, that "the minds of men were terrified by 
lightnings, tempests, snow, hail, devastations, pestilence, 
earthquakes, sudden sinkings of the earth, portentous 
births, meteors, comets," and other dreadful phenomena 
of that sort ; and, under the influence of this fear, he 
continues, they were led to suspect the existence of some 
divine and celestial power. The prevalence of this feeling 
of fear before superior power, is sufficiently manifest in 
the character of the Homeric gods, and the temper of 
Homeric piety. But the full development of this ugly 
side of old Hellenic religion we must defer till we come 
to make some remarks on that feeling of jealousy towards 
mortal men which so strongly characterizes the Homeric 
gods. Meanwhile, it may be sufficient to remark that, 
for all practical purposes, without affecting metaphysical 
curiosity, the Oeoi hire irdvra hvvavrai of Od, X. 306, may 
be taken as a general expression of Homer's opinion with 
regard to the gods. How much also mere power is re- 



30 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

garded as the distinguishing characteristic of the divine 
nature, appears most strikingly from this, that the sons 
of the gods often differ from mortal men only in superior 
strength ; in virtue they may be much inferior, as in the 
familiar case of Polypheme — 

avruOeov IIo\v<pr)/jbov bov Kparos hari fjieyto-rov 
iraaiv Kv/cXcoTreacTLv. — Od. I. 70. 

Such passages as Od. xn. 107, where it is said that 
not even a god could do so and so, are, with reference to the 
supposed power of the gods, not to be pressed curiously, 
they being merely loose colloquialisms perfectly identical 
with our English style, when we say, it would defy the 
devil to do so. The only thing that the gods cannot do, is 
to save from death (Od. in. 236) ; but this also, I suspect, 
is not to be pressed further than the fact that, in the 
general case, the gods never do save from death. Had 
Homer been catechised curiously with regard to his belief, 
whether it was within the power of the gods to save from 
death, there is little doubt that he would have given as 
orthodox an answer as any Christian that repeats the 
Nicean creed. It appears, indeed, from the Iliad, that 
Jove was both able and willing to rescue Sarpedon from the 
fate that cut him off, and was restrained from doing so 
only by a regard to the representations of his yokefellow, 
Hera, whose constant habit it was to thwart her husband's 
plans. Omnipotent in all points he evidently was not, 
as he never could have been so without nullifying the 
rights of the other gods. In her own domain, of course, 
Aphrodite would brook no rival, and even Hypnos has 
power over the Eternal (xiv. 352). But all this does not 
touch his practical all-sufficiency as the Supreme Governor, 
moral and physical, of the universe. Whatever grades, 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 31 

distinctions, and rights might have been among the gods 
themselves, these differences affect not the general relation 
in which the mortal stands to the immortal, viz., a relation 
of complete and absolute dependence. How far the gods 
themselves, and even Zeus, may have been secretly subject 
to some dim unknown power called Fate or Fortune, we 
now proceed to inquire. 

Proposition ix. — Of an omnipotent Fortune, or all- 
controlling Fate, as a separate independent power, to 
which gods and men must equally yield, the practical 
theology of Homer knows nothing ; nevertheless there 
are certain dim indications of an irreversible order of 
things — it is not said how arising — to which even the 
gods submit. This the later theology of the Greeks 
seems to have worked up into the idea of a separate 
independent divine power called Fate. 

The common idea, that the Greek theology represents 
the gods as subject to a superior power called Fate or the 
Fates, is derived from the tragedians, and from later 
writers generally, certainly not from Homer. In the 
Homeric poems, Jove and the gods are the only prominent 
and all-controlling actors in the great drama of existence. 
None of Homer's pious heroes, when narrating their 
fortunes, set forth, — 

" Fortuna Omnipotens et ineluctabile Fatum," 

Virgil, JEn. viii. 334, 

as the great authors of their bliss or bane. On the con- 
trary, it is certain that fj,o2pa or alaa is merely the lot or 
portion dealt out by the supreme providence of the gods, 
and that whatsoever is fiopaifiov or fated to a man, is so 
because it is OeafyaTov, or spoken by the divine decree. 
These words are, in fact, identical (Od. iv. 562, x. 473), 



32 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

Zeus is especially named as the sender of a man's fiolpa, 
(Od. xi. 559), and in the same style occurs A to? alaa (II. 
xyii. 321, ix. 604 ; Od. ix. 52), and 6eov ^olpa {Od. xi. 
292). And these passages come to us, not only with 
their own distinct evidence, but with the whole weight of 
the general doctrine of the overruling providence of Oeol 
and Zeis, which we find under every possible variety 
of shape in almost every page of the Homeric writings. 
There is no such sentiment in Homer as that in Herodotus, 
quoted by Nagelsbach, — TrjV 7re7rpoofjLe'vr)v fiolpav ahivard eari 
dirocftvyeeiv kcli Oea (Clio, 91), nor that which iEschylus 
puts into the mouth of Prometheus (v. 516), — 

Ovkovv av €K(j>vyoc ye (i.e. Zevs) ttjv Treirpcofjievriv, 

and though it be quite true that the idea of fiotpa, like 
that of v Att] and Kr\p, is in some places impersonated (II. 
xix. 87 ; xx. 128 ; Od. vn. 197), I can see no proof that 
the poet looked upon this Alaa, the spinner of fatal 
threads, as any more substantial person than " Att] ; much 
less can I see the slightest reason to exalt her above those 
very supreme rulers, of whose functions she is only a 
cloudy and half-developed incarnation. I say half- 
developed, because, as above remarked, there is a great 
difference in Homer between the full-grown gods, clad 
with all the dignity of a person, and such personages as 
v Arrj, Molpa, and the Harpies, who, like the Egyptian frogs 
mentioned by Diodorus, if gods at all, have not yet ac- 
quired strength enough to shake themselves free from 
the slime out of which their physiognomy has to be 
shaped. 

Altogether, Homer is a poet of too sunny a complexion 
to deal much in the dark idea of a remorseless Fate ; 
and if, on a sad occasion (Il< vi. 487), Hector comforts 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 33 

Andromache by saying, that no one can take away his life 
virep alcrav, and that no one can escape his fioipa, this man- 
ner of speaking is not Turkish any more than it is Calvin- 
istic ; it is only human. Such a thought occurs to all 
men under certain circumstances. That no man can 
escape death when his day is come {II. xn. 326) is what 
any man may say as well as Sarpedon. 

But though I cannot allow that anything like a regular 
doctrine of Fate superior to Jove is taught by Homer, it 
is not to be denied that there are expressions and situ- 
ations in his poems from which the Hellenic mind, if 
so inclined, might easily develop such a doctrine as 
we stated above (p, 19) that the tragedians had shaped 
out from the idea of Ate. And there is nothing more 
obvious than the necessity of thought which led the 
Greeks to work out this idea of Fate to the stature which 
we find it has attained in that passage of Herodotus, and 
in the tragedians. For, to the thoughtful mind, in 
reference to many things that daily happen in this world, 
the divine power being first postulated as unbounded, the 
question will always arise, — if the divine power could have 
made the world otherwise, ivhy did it not do so? This 
question the Homeric men, if they had no tradition of the 
doctrine of Moses, that the world lies under a curse for the 
sin of the first man, and if they did not believe, as they 
certainly did not, in a devil, could only answer by saying, 
that things are ivhat they are, and as they are, by some 
inherent necessity of nature, and not even a god could 
make them otherwise than they are made. That some 
dim idea of this kind may have hovered before Homer's 
mind is extremely probable, though he certainly has not 
worked it up into any definite system which his reader 
can lay hold of. Homer, as the event proved, had 



34 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMEB. 

said enough to feed the metaphysico-imaginative wit of 
his countrymen, and had dropt the seed out of which a 
regular personal Molpa or " Ava^tct] might grow; and, if 
there were theological sects in ancient Greece inclined to 
wrangle about the comparative powers of Molpa and Zeu?, 
as even our theologians draw swords about liberty and ne- 
cessity, both parties, with that ingenuity of which religious 
sects are seldom void, would readily find in the Homeric 
bible texts sufficiently pliable to their several opinions. 1 

Proposition x. — The gods know all things. This 
proposition, however, like that respecting the divine 
omnipotence, must not be pressed curiously, but under- 
stood with reference to the uses of the divine know- 
ledge in the moral government of the world. 

The practical omniscience of the Homeric gods is 
implied in their general control and superintendence of 
human affairs, which, without such an attribute, could 
not possibly be exercised in the grand style which is 
characteristic of Homer ; the special doctrine, however, 
Oeol Be re iravra lo~aaiv (Od. IV. 379), was as familiar to 
the Greek ear as the Oeol Be re wavra Bvvavrai already 
quoted, and this quality of superhuman knowledge not 
limited by the vulgar barriers of space and time, though 

1 N'agelsbach, after reviewing the hold together the articulated organism 
passages which seem to speak for the in- of the celestial society; and the pro- 
dependent functions of the Moipa,with a duct of this desire is the Moipa, a power 
more serious and favourable eye than I made superior to the gods; another essay 
have been able to do in the text, con- of the human mind to satisfy its innate 
eludes thus : — • ' The will which rules longing for a monotheistic view of the 
the Olympian commonwealth is not so universe,^ p. 127. I cannot see that 
absolute as that every existing might Homer had anything so very definite 
necessarily retreats before it. For the in view when he talks of the Molpa. It 
human mind is formed with an irrepres- appears to me that he never conceived 
sible desire to give a head to the multi- of it distinctly as anything indepen- 
form congregation of the gods, to pro- dent of the will of the gods, 
vide a principle of unity, which shall 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 35 

it belongs to all the partakers of an immortal nature, is, 
with peculiar emphasis, applied to the elemental god, 
Helios, 09 iravr £<j>opa Kal ttclvt eiraKoveu {Od. XII. 323), 
and to Zeus, the moral governor of the world (xv. 523). 
It is not to be expected, however, that the sense-bound 
poet of an early stage of civilisation should be able, on all 
occasions, to preserve in fact the consistency of this high 
ideal of the celestial intellect, which he lays down theo- 
retically. On the contrary, as Nagelsbach well observes, the 
spectacle of a self-constituted but continually self-baffled 
ideal of supersensuous perfection, is that which the Homeric 
gods (and I may add, the theological doctrines of nations 
much more highly cultivated) present. Examples are 
frequent; but II. xviii. 168, and xix. 112, show more 
vividly than any other passages how even the father of 
gods and men may, at times, be blinded and circumvented 
by the agency of his own ministers. 

Proposition xt. — The gods are easily offended, wrath- 
ful and jealous. Their hatred is the more to be dreaded 
in proportion as they are more powerful than mortals ; 
and their high resolves, when once made, are carried out 
with a relentless firmness, that can be appeased only 
by the greatest possible sacrifices on the part of the guilty 
or unfortunate offender. 

Nothing strikes the Christian reader of Homer with 
more astonishment, and it may be loathing, than the ex- 
tremely low moral character of the celestial personages 
who are held up to view as the objects of popular rever- 
ence ; and of the base feelings by which the bosoms of 
these high persons are continually actuated, that of a 
purely selfish jealousy on private grounds of quarrel, and 
an unrelenting spirit of personal hostility, is to a well- 



36 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

constituted moral nature the most odious. One is at 
times tempted, considering these things, to say of the 
Homeric gods generally, as Dr. Ihne says of the gods of 
the Iliad, that they are "worse than the men." Cer- 
tainly, whatever be the temper of the gods of the Iliad in 
this respect, that of the Odyssey is nothing better ; for 
what wrath can be more relentless and persecuting than 
that of Poseidon against Ulysses? (Od. I. 20 ; xiii. 125 ; 
&c), and what motive for this anger can be less noble and 
more a kin to the meanest humanity, than that assigned 
by the poet, Od. I. 69 ? Polypheme is a godless monster 
and a cannibal ; and because Ulysses, to save himself and 
his comrades from being eaten alive, deprives this em- 
bruted hulk of his eye-sight, he incurs the indignation of 
the deity, who happens to be the monster's father, to such 
a degree, that nothing but the lives of all his trusty com- 
rades can satiate the divine appetite for revenge. Nor is 
this a solitary case ; but it goes through the whole poetry 
of Homer with such a pervading inspiration, that, though 
living in an age when more just ideas of the divine char- 
acter were entertained by not a few, Virgil did not think 
that he could scheme out the characters of his immortal 
Epos, without having a Juno to perform the like part. 
Nor is the wrath or fierce hostility of the gods the worst 
feature in the divine character. The mean selfish jealousy 
with which Poseidon regards the commercial prosperity of 
the Phaoacians, is comparable to nothing so fitly as the 
spirit with which the members of close corporations in 
this country, without the slightest regard to the public 
good, defended their exclusive privileges before a committee 
of an aristocratic House of Commons. What shall we say 
to all this ? Only one thing can be said, that the men 
who could so conceive, and so picture their gods, were 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 37 

themselves in a very low state of moral development. 
Whether Homer himself was not a little advanced in 
ethical insight beyond the men whose traditionary theology 
he received into his verse, is not easy to say ; certainly 
some of the most glaring instances of moral deformity in 
the character and actions of his divine personages may be 
conveniently explained on the supposition already men- 
tioned, that he is there giving us the crude and unas- 
similated elements of an old Pelasgic creed ; but this 
consideration will not help us very far, as the conduct of 
Achilles himself — a fair specimen of the popular hero of 
those days — is, in point of inexorability and passion, no 
unworthy type of the " tantcene animis ccelestibus irce " 
which marks the characters in the Olympian drama. If 
Achilles may immolate his thousands being a mortal, 
Poseidon, being a god, may swallow up his tens of thou- 
sands. We are forced, therefore — if we will have a pallia- 
tion for this monstrous theology — to fall back upon this 
proposition, that, in the Homeric conception of the gods, 
holiness, or moral excellence of any kind, forms no essen- 
tial element. Superior strength is their characteristic attri- 
bute, and fear rather than love the inspiration of their 
worshippers. The gods, in fact — except in the single case 
of Zeus, as moral governor — are only incarnations of the 
powers and forces that we see everywhere at work around 
us in nature ; and as such it is not to be expected that 
they should manifest any moral feelings whatever. The 
wrath of Poseidon, therefore, though represented to us by 
the poet as the evil passion of a being like to our evil 
selves, is fundamentally nothing but the violence of the 
ocean waves, which, at the present day, rages and roars 
with as little regard to any moral principle as it did in 
the age of Homer. The god Poseidon, as he stands in 



38 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

Homer, is a clumsy union of two incompatible characters ; 
an unruly elemental power, and a being formed after the 
image of man, and therefore properly with a moral nature ; 
but the poet, partly because he was himself unacquainted 
with a high moral type of humanity, partly because he 
could not shake the gods free from that merely physical 
character which originally was their only one, was able to 
produce nothing but a gigantic incongruity, to which all- 
the harmony of his numbers, and all the magic of Phidias' 
chisel, could not afterwards reconcile the growing prac- 
tical reason of his countrymen. 

Proposition xii. — The gods are capable of acting 
falsely, and of deceiving the expectations which they had 
raised in the breasts of mortals. A wise man should not 
trust absolutely to a god, but, on slippery occasions, 
exact an oath for the greater security. 

This proposition contains the culminating point of 
odious immorality in the character of the Homeric gods as 
depicted by Homer ; and though it is no doubt true that 
the most glaring instances of divine want of faith occur 
in the Iliad, and that for sufficient reasons already men- 
tioned, there are examples enough of the same principle 
in the other poem, to show that the author of both was 
either the same, or had fundamentally the same concep- 
tions of the divine character. In the Odyssey, Ulysses 
exacts an oath both of Calypso and Circe, because he 
could not trust them without it ; and so much accus- 
tomed is he to the idea of deceit on the part of the gods, 
that even when the benign daughter of Cadmus appears 
over the rush of waves to save him from a watery death, 
the first thing he does is to suspect that one of the gods 
is iveaving a ivilefor his ruin (Od. v. 356). Telemachus, 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 39 

in the same way, will not believe that Ulysses is his 
father, but fears that some god is bewitching him — 6e\yet 
(Od. xvi. 195) — to his woe. In the Iliad, again, Jove 
sends ov\o$ Svetpo? to deceive Agamemnon, and Agamem- 
non is a fool (vrjirios) for believing him (n. 38). The king 
of men, in another place, charges the king of gods and 
men with an evil deceit, /cater) airdrr) (II. ix. 21), and the 
fair Helen, in speaking to the fairest Aphrodite, uses 
a word — rj-rreponreveiv (II. in. 399) — which, according to 
Homeric usage, is applicable only to swindlers and seducers 
of the lowest kind (Od. xv. 419). But worse remains. 
Athena, the incarnated wisdom of "the. father" — one of 
the most perfect characters in Hellenic theology — on two 
distinct occasions, perpetrates a very gross act of deceit 
and falsehood, from which every honourable and manly 
feeling revolts ; in the first place, she solicits and 
obtains from Zeus (the op/cios, the avenger of violated 
truth !) the permission to tempt Pandarus to violate the 
treaty solemnly sworn to by the leaders of the Trojans 
and the Greeks, which treaty is accordingly broken, and 
the daughter of Zeus is guilty of tempting a mortal man 
to commit an act of pure perjury, her father consenting 
(II. iv.). In the second place (what Hermann, in his Latin 
argument, calls an " atrox dolus"), by personating 
Deiphobus (II. xxii. 227), she draws away the unsuspect- 
ing Hector into that unequal conflict with the son of 
Peleus, in which he was to meet his sad fate. Now, with 
regard to these truly monster traits of divine character as. 
occurring in the two last passages of the Iliad, we must 
make the special remark, that these extraordinary acts of 
divine perfidy are all made in favour of the Greeks, whose 
poet Homer was by strong preference, as every book of 
the poem shows. The cases, therefore, fall within the 



10 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

extensive category of abnormal moral states caused by 
self-love, national vanity, and party-preference, so that, 
in fact, the poet merely says, in a rude unqualified way 
(being accustomed to plain speaking), what all parties, 
and especially all religious parties, in all ages, have sup- 
posed and acted on — that when Heaven is interested in 
a cause (or the church, as we say now) justice may be- 
come injustice, and truth and falsehood be confounded. 
Still it must be admitted that there is a wide moral gulf 
between Homer, who makes his gods do these things, 
and our modern religious parties, who only do them in 
the name of God. These, by their evil deeds, make void 
their own scriptures ; the countrymen of the old poet, for 
every diabolic deed, might plead a divine precedent in the 
only scripture of which they were in possession. With 
regard to the other less glaring instances of divine deceit, 
the observations made under the former head apply. In 
a warlike and semi-savage people, cunning and stratagem, 
lies and deceit of every kind, must ever — of course, within 
certain recognised bounds — be in high esteem; and Ulysses, 
no less than Achilles, will find his pattern and his patron 
in Heaven. It is also to be borne in mind, when con- 
sidering these matters, that the devout Greek habit of 
referring every internal change of feeling, or external 
change of circumstance, to direct divine agency, almost 
necessitated the extraordinary language which they some- 
times use, of their gods. As, for instance, when in an 
adverse position, one of the Homeric warriors exclaims — 

Zev irarep, rj pa vv /ecu av $>Cko"tyev§T]<; eTervgo 

77. XII. 164. 

" father Zeus, you are fond of lies above all measure" 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 41 

these impious-sounding words, when translated into 
modern language, merely mean, " gracious God, how have 
I been deceived in all this ; how have my expectations 
been disappointed ! " Zeus, in the view of the Homeric 
men, was at once the inspirer of the hopes which this 
man had entertained (Prop, in.) and the arranger of the 
external circumstances (Prop, n.) by which they had been 
frustrated ; therefore he says bluntly, " Jove, thou hast 
deceived me signally ! " instead of " God, how signally 
have I been deceived ! " 

Proposition xiii. — The gods, as the givers of all good 
things, are to be regarded as habitually inspired with a 
benevolent affection towards the human race ; and though, 
on certain occasions, and against particular persons, their 
indignation is terrible, and their vengeance not easily satis- 
fied, still their general character, in reference to offending 
mortals, is placability. 

The passages which I have to adduce in support of this 
proposition from the Homeric writings are comparatively 
few ; but we are not on that account to suppose that it 
contains a sentiment less familiar to the minds of the 
Greeks, than those of a less amiable character contained in 
the immediately preceding propositions. As those years 
are often the happiest in a nation's history which furnish 
fewest materials for the pen of the dramatic historian, so 
those attributes of the Hellenic gods are not to be re- 
garded as the least influential, which give occasion to the 
fewest startling events in the narration of a popular Epos. 1 
It is in the nature of things that the wrath of gods, like 

1 I scarcely think Nagelsbach has as it appears in Homer, because there 

sufficiently regarded this when he states is no love of the gods tomen presupposed 

in such strong language, that "love to from which it could arise," p. 201. 
God could notarise in the Hellenic mind, 



42 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMME, 

the wrath of men, just because it is an exception from 
the common order of proceedings, should give rise to 
critical situations, strange concatenations, and striking 
catastrophes, such as form the natural raw materials for 
an Epic poet to work up. So the divine wrath consequent 
on the sin of Adam supplied a theme of appropriate 
grandeur for Milton's lofty Muse ; so the miseries of a 
thirty years' war became pictorial in the hands of Schiller ; 
and in the same way, Poseidon dairepx^ fieveatvwv furnished 
Homer with a series of the most varied adventures, which 
he might have sought for in vain among the stores of rich 
bounty spread on groaning boards by the Oeoi Scott) pes hcuov 
(Od. viii. 325). The general benevolence of the Homeric 
gods, notwithstanding the special instances of wrath just 
mentioned, is to be inferred not so much from a special 
designation to that effect, as from the general tone of 
cheerful gratitude with which their goodness is continually 
acknowledged by their worshippers on all the occasions of 
common life. Notwithstanding the strong expressions 
quoted under the previous heads, no person can rise from 
the perusal of the Homeric poems, with an impression 
that there is anything stern and forbidding in the habitual 
aspect of the gods, or that fear was the only strong feeling 
in the minds of their worshippers. Though power is their 
principal characteristic, it is never supposed that they use 
that attribute maliciously, or wantonly, merely to vex 
mankind. On the contrary, Zeus, even when in the mid- 
career of his predestined course, looks down with pity on 
the mortals whose fate it is to suffer sharp sorrows, that 
the purposes of the Almighty one may be fulfilled; and 
the prayer of the labouring good man prevails, if not to 
avert the blow altogether, at least to blunt the point of 
the weapon which inflicts it (71 vhi. 245). That the gods, 






ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 4£ 

though not easily turned from their purposes (Od. m. 147), 
are yet to a certain extent, with the single exception of 
Hades (II. ix. 158), <tt peirrol (Id. 497), is so much an 
essential doctrine of Homeric theology, that it is expressly 
stated as the only ground on which prayers, sacrifices, and 
other acts of divine worship proceed — • 

Kal /lev tovs Bveeacn teat ev^co'Xy^ ayavrjaip 
\oi/3y re KVicrarj re iraparpwirwcr avOpcoTroi. 

II. IX. 500. 

And in general, we may say that, though the gods of the 
Greeks, as portrayed by Homer, present many individual 
traits in common with the lowest theology, or rather 
demonology of the most savage peoples, their general 
character is as mild and beneficent as the necessities of 
their physical original, and the habitude of a warlike 
atmosphere allowed. 

The few propositions that remain relate to the method 
of communication between gods and men, and the obliga- 
tions arising out of the relation in which men, as depend- 
ent and responsible creatures, stand to the gods, as the 
supreme disposers of all things, and the moral governors 
of the world. 

Proposition xiv. — The gods maintain an intercourse 
with men as part of the ordinary course of their provi- 
dence, and this intercourse consists principally in revela- 
tions of the divine will, and specially of future events, 
made to men by oracular voices, dreams, and sacred signs, 
the transmission and interpretation of which belongs gene- 
rally, though by no means exclusively, to certain persons 
peculiarly set apart to sacred functions, called soothsayers 
and priests. 

There is no necessity for marshalling an array of pas- 



44 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

sages to prove matters so familiarly known to every reader 
of Homer as those mentioned in the first part of this pro- 
position. But the second part of it is very important, not 
only in reference to Homer, but in reference to the whole 
genius and character of social religion, as exhibited in the 
history of the ancient Greeks. There is no appearance of 
a caste of priests in Homer, such as is in India and Egypt ; 
no far-reaching closely-banded corporation of priests, fenc- 
ing society round with a bristling rampart of artificial ortho- 
doxies, such as exists now in many parts of Christendom. 
Volcker, it seems from a quotation in Nagelsbach (p. 176), 
has lately hazarded the assertion, that there is a " certain 
hierarchy of Homeric priests ;" but this emphatic word 
hierarchy is precisely what no unprejudiced reader will 
ever witch out of Homer, any more than he can extract 
the same doctrine out of the New Testament. Priests 
there are, no doubt, in Homer, as we see in the very 
opening scene of the first book of the Iliad, but they seem 
always attached as stationary ministers to some particular 
temple or shrine ; and nowhere do they come forward in 
that position, and with that importance, which belongs to 
a body of sacerdotal men, banded together for such social 
purposes, as we find the Romish priests in Roman Catho- 
lic countries now banded. Against all such pretensions 
on the part of the Homeric priests, it is sufficient — we 
entirely agree with Nagelsbach — to mention the single 
fact, that these functionaries are nowhere, in Homer, re- 
presented as the only and indispensable mediators between 
earth and heaven, and that, wanting this, they want the 
grand condition precedent to the possibility of a hierarchy 
properly so called. No modern Plymouth brother or 
Quaker could have less exclusive ideas on the subject of 
priesthood than the old Hellenic Homer ; he mentions 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 45 

priests, indeed, and with respect, as persons existing and 
performing honoured functions with benefit to the com- 
munity, but he has not the most remote conception that 
the divine Spirit, like the electric fluid, has any exclusive 
preference to being conducted through a sacerdotal chan- 
nel. Such an idea is, in fact, altogether precluded by the 
habitual direct operation of the divine Spirit on the mind 
of all men described in Proposition in. ; besides, we find 
constantly the functions of priests and soothsayers per- 
formed in a voluntary way, without apology, by all sorts 
of persons. The right of laic divination is asserted by 
Athena as a thing well known (Od. I. 200), and exercised 
by Helen (xv. 172), while acts of public (II. in. 271) 
and of family devotion (Od. in. 418) (see Nagelsbach, 
p. 180) are everywhere performed by the chiefs without the 
intervention of a priest, in a manner which, in a sacerdotal 
country like modern Spain, could in nowise be tolerated. 
We may take it with us, therefore, as an undoubted fact 
from the earliest records of the most cultivated nation of 
antiquity, that freedom from sacerdotal bonds existed 
among them in the earliest times, as the indispensable 
condition of that luxuriant growth and bloom of intelli- 
gence to which they afterwards attained. 

Proposition xv. — The gods visit the earth, and often 
appear in a visible shape to mortals, generally, however, 
under some human mask, in such a manner that, while 
their godhead is veiled to the general eye, they are 
capable of being seen and recognised in their divine char- 
acter by the unfilmed eye of their pious worshippers. 

Dr. Ihne, in the passage above quoted, lays down a 
distinction in this matter of theophany, which he has ob- 
served between the Iliad and the Odyssey. I can find 



46 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

none. "In the Iliad" says he, "the gods are visible to 
every one, except when they surround themselves with a 
cloud ; in the Odyssey they are usually invisible except 
when they take the shape of men, How the first of these 
assertions should have been made in the face of the well- 
known lines, II. I. 197 — 

arrj 5* O7n0€v, %av0rjs re Kofir)<; eXe IlrjXeLcova, 
olw cfxiLvofievr) — 

I do not know. This passage, indeed, represents a grand 
condition of every theophany, both in the Iliad and the 
Odyssey, that the god does not appear to the profane- 
staring many (in this view contrast Leviticus ix. 23), 
but only to the particular favoured mortal with whom he 
stands in a spiritual relation — 

ov yap ttco iravTeaai 6eot tyaivovrai evapyeis. 

Od.xvi. 161. 

As little have I been able to observe any difference be- 
tween the two poems, in respect of the human mask which 
the gods generally assume. This, so far as I can see, is 
the rule in the Iliad as much as in the Odyssey (see II. 
v. 462, 604, xiii. 45, xiv. 136, &c. &c.) ; and, indeed, 
there are few extensively believed creeds, of which the 
appearance of the divine Being in a human shape does not 
form a characteristic element. The Epicureans were not 
so far wrong here as in some other points of their theology, 
which they made to float so uselessly in the air. Had 
they brought down their anthropomorphic divinities to 
walk the earth with a human sympathy as well as with a 
divine power, they might certainly have calculated on a 
thousand worshippers, for one that would have been 
attracted by the "round gods" 1 of the Stoics. The impor- 

1 Mundum ipsum sensibus prceditum the sneer of the Epicurean interlocu- 
rotundum volubilem ardentem Deum, tor in Cicero {De Nat. Deor. i. 8). 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER, 47 

tant fact with regard to theophany in Homer is, that it is 
regulated in all respects like the apparition of ghosts in 
modern demonology. Modern ghosts, like the ancient 
classical idols, appear always in a human shape ; and, like 
the ancient gods, they appear not at random to any per- 
son or all persons, but to certain persons, on special 
occasions, for special reasons, and for special purposes. 
Only to certain highly-favoured tribes, in this respect 
elevated above the general level of humanity, do they appear 
publicly and evapyeU ; as to the Phaaacians (Od. vn. 202), 
a people who are ayylQeot, or " near to the gods," 
pretty much in the same way that Adam and Eve in 
paradise stand before the mind of the devout Christian in 
modern times, as living and walking with God after a 
fashion to which not the most highly-favoured saint in 
this age of moral decadence can attain. One other re- 
mark with regard to divine theophany, Nagelsbach makes, 
which did not occur to me. The mighty Zeus never 
appears in his own person on the stage of human affairs. 
Between him and his wise daughter, the nearest to him 
of the celestial conclave, there is a mighty gulf in this 
respect. Jove sits apart. In Homer, as in Horace, he 
has nothing like to him in all the universe, and nothing 
second — 

" Nee viget quicquam simile aut secundum." 

To a being so highly exalted, converse with such ephemeral 
creatures as mortal men is possible only through 
mediators. 

Proposition xvi. — Worship is due by mortal men to 
all the gods, with Jove supreme at their head ; but more 
especially to the patron god or goddess of particular places 
and functions, with whom the worshipper is under any 



48 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

particular circumstances brought into more particular con- 
nexion. The gods have a special delight in receiving such 
reverential acknowledgments from men (Od. in. 438), 
come bodily to receive the sacrifices that are offered to 
them (Id. in. 435), and remember the pious offerer, 
rewarding him in due season. 

In the Homeric idea of worship by sacrifice, there is 
something particularly simple and unsophisticated. The 
share which is given to the gods of the wine that flows, 
and the flesh that smokes on the festal board, proceeds 
from a combination of the two ideas, that man owes an 
acknowledgment of some kind to the powers by whom his 
existence is sustained ; and that these powers, being essen- 
tially human in their habits and sympathies, can enjoy 
such offerings of gratitude as one mortal would offer to be 
enjoyed by another. 1 This case is precisely analogous to 
that of the departed spirits, who are represented in Hades 
as sipping nourishment from the pools of streaming blood 
which Ulysses had shed on entering their domain (Od. xi.). 
The feeling of grateful dependence on which this worship 
depends is a characteristic of every healthy mind in the 

Homeric page : 

ovSe (tv/3cot7}<; 
\rj6eT ap aOavarav tppeac <yap Ke%pr)T ayaOrjaiv. 

And on the due performance of such acts of pious acknow- 
ledgment rests a sort of claim on the part of pious men 
to receive assistance from the gods in the hour of need 
(Od. I. 65, xix. 365, II. i. 39). 

Proposition xvii. — Even of more importance in a 
religious man than external acts of ceremonial worship is 

1 The idea of vicarious atonement sacrifice of the scape-goat (Lev. xvi. 21), 
by sacrifice, so clearly indicated in the is not to be found in Homer. 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 49 

his duty to cherish that feeling of dependence on the 
celestial powers, from which all acts of acceptable worship 
proceed. Nothing is more characteristic of a pious man, 
according to the Homeric idea, than the habitual deep 
impression which he carries along with him, of the infinite 
distance between the divine and the human condition. Of 
this feeling the natural expression is prayer (to which the 
gods generally, though not always, lend a ready ear), as 
of its absence the natural indication is pride and arro- 
gance, and a boastful spirit : qualities of mind altogether 
inconsistent with the condition of humanity, and there- 
fore rendering man peculiarly obnoxious to the divine 
displeasure. 

That humility of mind is not a characteristic of 
heathen, but only of Christian piety, is a proposition which 
we sometimes hear stated in a declamatory way from the 
pulpit, or even in serious works of moral philosophy ; but 
every page of Homer, as of the tragedians, cries out against 
such a representation, the fact being, that few virtues are 
more prominently brought forward by Homer than humi- 
lity; and in the words of his wisdom, as in those of Solo- 
mon, pride, insolence, and haughtiness are the universal 
forerunners of a fall. In the first place, the continual re- 
currence of prayer under all the varied circumstances of life, 
is of itself an indication of a state of mind from which 
lofty looks and vain self-sufficiency are far. " Who 
knows, but that with the help of God (<rvv hai^ovi) I may 
'prevail ? " is the modest language of a Homeric hero 
when undertaking a difficult mission (II. xv. 403) ; and in 
the ethico-religious language of the poet, v/3piaral, insolent, 
haughty, and overbearing men are coupled with aypioc and 
ovde hUaioi, and contrasted with those whose mind is 
Oeovhrjs, or godly (Od. vi. 121). Nothing is more conspicu- 

D 



50 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

ous in the character of the wise Ulysses, than the humility 
with which he throws off all those compliments paid him 
by his admiring entertainers, in which they liken him to 
the immortal gods : 

ov yap eycoye 
aOavaroicnv eoaca, rot ovpavov evpvv e^ovaiv. — Od. VII. 209. 

a beautiful contrast to the sounding impiety with which 
Greek kings of the East in later days allowed altars to be 
erected to their honour, and caused the epithet QE02 to 
be stamped upon their coins ! It is the most certain of 
all doctrines with Homer, that no man whose breast is 
possessed with this superhuman conceit will long escape 
the anger of the gods, with whose perfections he provokes 
an impious comparison. So Eurytus the bowman, puffed 
up with self-sufficiency on account of his prowess, dies 
prematurely by the shafts of Apollo (Od. viii. 225) ; so 
Thamyris was blinded by the Muses (II. n. 595) ; so Ajax 
was whelmed in the waters of Poseidon, for the insolent 
boast (like that of Capaneus in iEschylus), — 

cj)rj p aeKTjTi 6ecov (pvyeeiv fieya\aLTfia Oiikdaaris. — Od. IV. 504. 

No doctrine, therefore, is more essentially Homeric than 
that of Sophocles in the first chorus of the Antigone : 

Zevs yap fxeyaXr)^ yXcoacrT]^ KOfXTrovs 
V7repe^6atper 

and if there be any apparent exceptions to this rule, they 
are easily explained. It is quite true that man does not 
stand at such an infinite distance from the divine nature 
in a polytheistic, as under a monotheistic system ; and 
therefore it is nothing surprising to find gods of an in- 
ferior order sometimes even made subject to mortal men 
for the nonce, as Proteus, Od. iv. ; but with all this th( 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 51 

grand doctrine remains, that with the gods in council, or 
with Jove as their natural head and representative, no 
mortal may dare to contend (II. vi. 129, xvn. 98) ; and of 
this the example of Diomede in the fifth book of the 
Iliad, which seems to indicate the contrary, is the strongest 
proof. The actions done by the Etolian hero in that 
remarkable book are all done by the special advice, and 
under the direct guidance of the daughter of Jove, and 
the responsibility of the deeds committed belongs, in the 
eye of the poet, altogether to her, and not at all to the son 
of Tydeus. The wounding of Aphrodite proves nothing ; 
the goddess of beauty, like all the other heathen gods, is 
powerful only in her own province. The attack made on 
Apollo is a more serious matter, and the poet treats it 
accordingly ; the impetuous mortal listens to the wise 
warning of the god, and retreats from the unequal com- 
bat (II. v. 440-44). With the same pious instinct he 
retreats from Ares once (v. 606), and again (819) ; and 
when the god of war is at last worsted at his own game, 
it is not the hand of a mortal, but of a superior goddess, 
that, with the point of her divinely-tempered spear, causes 
him to shake heaven and earth with his million- voiced 
roar (v. 856) ; and so Ares himself complains in the 
presence of Jove, that it is not Diomede, but the fathers 
own mad daughter, that is the cause of such sorrow 
(v. 882). The very next book also shows how far Homer 
was from imagining that in the previous descriptions he 
had compromised the character of his hero, as a humble 
and a pious-minded man. It is not a Capaneus, or an Ajax 
that says, 

Ou yap eywye deolaiv eirovpavioicrt /Jia^ot/Jirjv. — VI. 129. 

Is there, then, no difference between Christianity and 



52 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

the Homeric heathenism, in respect of the temper of mind 
with which the mortal looks on the immortal, the human 
on the divine ? Assuredly there is ; but the peculiarity 
of the heathen lies not in his underrating the virtue of 
humility, but in the narrower basis on which he plants it. 
Hellenic humility rests solely on a feeling of dependence ; 
Christian humility rests on this indeed also, but primarily 
and characteristically, — unless I am much mistaken, — on 
a feeling of guilt, or at least self-prostration, in the con- 
sciousness of sin before a perfect moral ideal. There is 
also to be noted a certain air of familiarity in talking to 
the gods, which to an ear tuned by the perusal of the 
Hebrew and Christian Scriptures is apt to appear irre- 
verent. Witness the light tone in which Helen is made 
to address Aphrodite (II. in. 399), and of Diomede to the 
same goddess (v. 348). But that which has excited the 
greatest scandal among the reverent admirers of the poet 
is the language of Hera to Jove (II. xiv. 332), and the 
famous adventure of Aphrodite and Ares, told with such 
humorous gusto in Odyssey vin. Of this we shall say 
nothing, except that it is perfectly consonant with the 
familiar tone with which polytheism allows the gods to be 
handled on occasions ; and that it is most admirably suited 
to the purpose for which it is introduced, viz., the sooth- 
ing down of the angry feelings which threatened to dis- 
turb the harmony of the Phseacian board by the narration 
of a jocular myth. 1 That jocular religious myths, how- 
ever, of any kind, should have been tolerated by a piously- 
disposed people like the Phaeacians, brings before us in 
the strongest possible light the truth, that the deepest 

1 Lloyd in Class. Mus., No. xxn. p. remain content with the statement that 
395, has with great ingenuity traced the I have given in the text, 
adaptation further ; but it is safer to 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 53 

habitual awe and reverence for the divine power can be 
felt only under a system of strict monotheism. Even in 
Christian Spain and Italy traits of a somewhat light 
and familiar piety are occasionally observed, from which 
the sternly consistent monotheism of Protestant Britain 
revolts. 

Proposition xvm. — There is an essential distinction 
between good and evil in human character and conduct. 
Man is responsible for his sins, and the gods inflict pun- 
ishment on the guilty, sometimes directly, sometimes by 
the hands of their fellow-men. 1 

That the Homeric poems, making allowances for a few 
peculiarities belonging to the age in which they were com- 
posed, exhale a general atmosphere of sound and healthy 
morality, will be doubted by no one. Their morality as a 
whole is much better than their theology ; for which in- 
deed, in the nature of things, there is this plain and obvious 
reason, that man requires a certain soundness of the moral 
feeling in order to exist at all as a social being, while the 
orthodoxy of his theological views is, among all nations, 
more or less without influence on his practical conduct. 
At all events, God has so ordained matters in this world, 
that the most extraordinary aberrations of human intellect 
in the domain of theological speculation do not neces- 
sarily carry along with them that amount of practical evil 
consequence which a man reasoning in his chamber might 
be apt to imagine. The doctrine, for instance, which has 
been already stated in Proposition in., that the gods are the 
authors of all the evil thoughts and purposes that stir the 

1 It is not demanded by the title of alluded to will be found in Nagelsbach 

the present paper to follow the Homeric under the title of Die practlsche Gottes- 

system of ethics into detail. Many erlcenntniss. 
matters of this kind that I have not 



54 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

bosom of man, would, if consistently followed out, necessarily 
lead to the confounding of all moral distinctions, and the 
denial of all human responsibility. But it is not the curse 
of poets, as it is of very logical philosophers, to be forced 
to follow a wrong principle into all the wrong conse- 
quences that naturally flow from it. No doubt the ever 
ready, "Not I am to blame, but a god ivho instigated my 
actions" was a convenient opiate for the conscience of the 
Homeric man, when forced, by public evil result, to ad- 
mit the folly of his private deed ; and tricks of this kind 
the self-love even of good men in the present day plays 
off on their consciences, though, of course, in a less direct 
form, and under a more refined verbal disguise ; but the 
sound moral faculty of Homer's age did not allow this 
palliative view of the origin of moral evil to rob the 
human mind of its instinctive judgments concerning the 
character of human actions ; nay, the highest authority in 
moral matters, Jove himself, in a remarkable passage, dis- 
tinctly repudiates the doctrine that evil comes from the 
gods, and throws it back directly on the self-originated 
perverseness of the human will : 

' fl TTOTTOL OlOV hvj VV 0€OV<i ftpOTOL CUTIOCOVTCLL. 

ef rjfjiewv yap <paat kclk, efjL/LLevar ol 8e tcaX avrol 
crcprjcrov araaOdkcr/aiV i>7repfiopov aXye e^ovaiv. 

Ocl. I. 32. 

These words, like the inscription on Dante's Hellgate, 
stand a striking text before the opening scenes of the 
Odyssey, that the reader may be impressed with the 
serious lesson of moral retribution which is to be taught by 
the bloody catastrophe. And not only the insolent and 
riotous suitors, but the companions of the sea-tost hero, 
are represented as having suffered what they suffered in 



; 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 55 

consequence of their own folly. 1 This also is prominently 
set forth in the very opening lines of the poem — 

aurwv yap o-cperepycrcv arao-OaXcrjcrcv oXovto. — I. 7. 

No less clearly is the truth enunciated, that the gods see 
with observant eyes the evil deeds of men, and recom- 
pense them accordingly. The most distinct utterance on 
this subject is put by the poet into the mouth of Eumaeus, 
" the divine swineherd," — 

ov fiev a^erXia epya 0eol pbaicapes ^CXeovcnv 
aXXa Stfcrjv tiovgi /ecu alcrifia epy avdpcoircov 

Oil XIV. 83. 

and in another remarkable passage it is said — 

kclL re deoi ^etvoiaiv eoacores aXXoBawolacv 
iravroloL reXeOovres 67TC(TTpo)(j)(ocn iroXrjas 

avOp(j07TQ)V b/3ptV T6 KOI eWO/jLLrjV 6(pOp(OVT€<;. 

xvii. 487. 

and, as if to avoid all possible misconception of his mean- 
ing on the part of the most obtuse, the grand moral of the 
whole poem is again distinctly repeated before the final 
work of retributive slaughter (xxn. 39) ; and this work 
accomplished is declared by the old Laertes to be an un- 
deniable proof that there are gods in the vast Olympus — 

Zev iraTep rj pa er ecrre 6eot Kara iiatcpov' OXv/attov 
€l ereov fJLvqarr)pe^ draaOaXov vf3ptv encrav. 

XXIV. 351. 

With regard to the gods, to whose office the function 
of retribution falls, though in cases of special sin3 against 
particular gods the punishment naturally comes from the 

1 It is well remarked by Nagelsbach, as folly (d<fipadla), and want of sense, 
that sin in Homer is often characterized See the passages collated in p. 270. 



56 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

quarter where the offence lies, yet in the common trans- 
actions of life, as already mentioned, it is Jove who 
grants iraklvTira epya ; so much so, indeed, that even the 
mighty god Helios (Od. xn. 376), when sinned against by 
the companions of Ulysses, instead of inflicting vengeance 
with his own hands, betakes himself to Zeus, and states 
his case, adding, that if justice be not done to him in 
this matter, he will leave the heaven, and, descending 
into Hades, spend his light henceforth on the dead. We 
have only to add further, with respect to the inflictors of 
divine vengeance, that in certain very gross cases, as 
offences against a father or a mother, the Erinnyes, or 
singly, "the Fury that walketh hi darkness," is called 
into play. These Furies, from the manner in which they 
are mentioned, seem to have been at first merely the im- 
personations of the apcu> or curses which parents, when 
sorely irritated, vented on their unnatural children (II. 
ix. 454, 567) ; but the idea seems afterwards to have 
been extended, so that even poor persons who are under 
the special protection of Zeus are said to have their 
'Epiwves or avengers (Od. xvn. 475). 

Proposition xix. — The souls of men exist after death 
in the subterranean abodes of Hades, or the invisible 
world, but in a dim, shadowy, unsubstantial state, by no 
means to be looked on with envy by those who behold the 
sun in the upper regions, and tread with firm foot on the 
stable earth. A few special favourites of the gods rise 
above this common fate of the vulgar dead, and partake 
in Heaven, or hi the isles of the west, of a state of sub- 
stantial beatitude ; while, on the other hand, a few 
atrocious monsters, or men of reckless and impious charac- 
ter, sinning daringly in the face of the gods, are condemned 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 57 

to excruciating woes in Tartarus or Hell. This terrible 
retribution, however, has no reference to common men, or 
common crimes, which are punished by the gods in the 
present life, the proper theatre of human fates. 

Among the many remarkable coincidences that a 
thoughtful observer might point out between the religious 
condition of the early Greek and that of the Hebrew mind, 
none is more notable than that which relates to the views 
entertained by both nations with regard to a future state. 
In a legislative capacity, of course, Moses had nothing to 
do with futurity ; but it is remarkable, that in many of 
the psalms, too many to require special quotation, the 
state of the dead is spoken of precisely in the same dim, 
comfortless way that characterizes the language of Homer. 
The well-known exclamation of Achilles, 

fir] hrj /jlol Oavarov <ye TrapavSa, (paiScfjU OSvaaev, &c. 

Oct. XL 488. 

where Ulysses, the live visitant of the dead, is endeavour- 
ing to console him in regard to what he had lost by 
death, contains a complete revelation of the early Greek 
ideas with regard to a future existence. Homer was no 
Plato. A distinct and practical realist, he had no con- 
ception of any existence worth having, without a sub- 
stantial body of flesh and blood. To him the Christian 
doctrine of the resurrection, so derided by the Stoics and 
Epicureans of the apostolic days {Acta A post. xvii. 18), 
would have appeared the necessary condition of the im- 
mortality which the gospel preached. I am scarcely in- 
clined to go so far as Nagelsbach (§ vn.) who says that 
the dead in Homer, except when roused to a momentary 
revival, are to be considered as utterly exenterated of 
that consciousness which is our real self in this terrene 



58 ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 

state ; but it is plain, from the whole of Book xi. and the 
other places where the dead are incidentally mentioned, 
that their state is so dim and cloudy, feeble and pithless, 
that for all the purposes which, to the energetic Homeric 
man, made life valuable, it was little better than absolute 
annihilation. When " darkness covers the eyes " of an 
old Hellenic hero, wounded in the red strife of war, the 
curtain has fallen on all his glory for ever ; and nothing 
now remains of that substantial energetic organism called 
man, but, as it were, a floating cloud or a dream. 

If this be Homer's general view of the state of the 
dead, we are not to wonder that he does not delay the 
punishment of the wicked in a future state, but rather 
completes their suffering in that state, where they are 
alone capable of any substantial enjoyment. Whether 
the twenty-fourth Book of the Odyssey be genuine or not, 
the procession of the elScoXa of the suitors to Hades, and 
their reception there, is quite in keeping with the whole 
Homeric representation of the state of the dead. We do 
not find that these wicked men, punished with such sanguin- 
ary vengeance in the present state, are subjected to any 
further tortures in the region to which they are conducted 
by Hermes. Homer has no hell for the mass of men, plainly 
enough, because he has no heaven. The instances of Sisy- 
phus, Tantalus, and a few others, mentioned in Book XL, 
prove no more a Homeric hell with regard to the mass of 
men, than the deathless transference of Menelaus to Ely- 
sium (Od. iv. 561) proves a general Homeric heaven. 
Only for perjurers some peculiar punishment of an awful 
nature seems reserved in a future life (II. in. 278) ; but 
the passing allusion to the judicial functions of Minos 
(Od. xi. 568), and that in a place peculiarly liable to in- 
terpolation, will never, by any man who understands the 



ON THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER. 59 

poet, be esteemed strong enough to warrant the assertion 
that he had any firm belief in a general state of retribu- 
tion after death. The gods of Homer are too substantial 
to waste their wrath on such pithless phantoms as float in 
his Hades. 

These, as rapidly as the union of completeness, with a 
certain degree of interest, would allow, are the most im- 
portant theological views which a careful study of the 
Homeric writings suggests. In arranging them I pro- 
ceeded on the principle of the greatest possible indepen- 
dence, by making a careful collation of all the passages in 
both poems that have any bearing on religion, and mar- 
shalling them under different heads, before I looked into 
any writer on the subject. After completing this labour, I 
took a careful view of Nagelsbach's most accurate and judi- 
cious work, so often quoted, and was happy to find that, 
while hi one or two places I was enabled, through his 
observations, to give a greater completeness to my own, 
on very few points had I arrived at conclusions different 
from his. This agreement will, I hope, serve as a sort of 
presumptive guarantee to scholars, that both our sum- 
maries may be regarded as substantially correct. I have 
not had an opportunity of consulting any other of the 
learned tracts and monograms with which the Germans 
have enriched this, as other curious departments of philo- 
logical research ; but this is the less to be regretted in a 
matter where the materials are not to be collected from 
remote regions, and where all that is attempted may be 
satisfactorily achieved, by diligent collation, a certain 
moral sympathy, and a fair amount of common sense. 



ON THE PKOMETHEUS BOUND OF 
^ESCHYLUS.* 



" Omnis scriptura sacra" says Thomas a Kempis, or 
whoever he be that bears that name — Omnis scriptura 
sacra, eo spiritu debet legi quo scripta est — a most admir- 
able rule of interpretation, not for the Bible only, but for 
all books, and a rule to the neglect of which may well be 
ascribed the creation of full nine-tenths of the follies of 
inane criticism and impertinent commentary, under which 
the biblical and philological shelves of the libraries groan ; 
but, like all very wise general maxims, this hermeneutical 
principle of the good Thomas, even when once thoroughly 
acknowledged and adopted, leaves a more wide region of 
doubt and difficulty behind, viz., in its own application. 



* 1. Die JEschyleische Trilogie Pro- 
metheus : von F. G. Welcker. Darm- 
stadt, 1824. 

2. Nachtrag zur Trilogie : von F. G. 
Welcker. Frankfurt-am-Main, 1826. 

3. De iEschyli Prometheo Soluto 
Dissertatio : scripsit God. Hermann ; 
edita 1828 (Opusc. iv. 253). 

4. Commentatio de iEschyli Prome- 
theo : auctore Dr. B. Toepelmann. 
Lips. 1829. 

5. Theologoumena iEschyli Tragici : 
exhibuit R. H. Klausen. Berol. 1829. 

6. De iEschyli Ternione Prometheo : 
auctore C. F. Bellmann. Uratislav. 
1839. 

7. Prometheus und sein Mythen- 



kreis : dargestellt von B. G. Weiske. 
Leipzig, 1842. 

8. Prometheus: die Sage und ihr 
Sinn ; ein Beitrag zur Religionsphilo- 
sophie : von G. von Lasaulx. Wiirz- 
burg, 1842. 

9. Des iEschylus Gefesselter Prome- 
theus : von G. F. Schoemann. Greifs- 
wald, 1844. 

10. Correspondence between Dr. Ju- 
lius Csesar and Professor Schoemann on 
the Prometheus, in the Zeitschrift f in- 
die Alterthums-Wissenschaft, 4ter Jahr- 
gang. October 1846. Cassel. 

11. The Prometheus of iEschylus, 
translated into English Verse by (1.) 
Captain Medwyn. London, 1832. — 



ON TEE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF ^SCHYLUS. 01 

It is a great point gained, no doubt, in the interpretation 
of ancient writings, when we can get men to commence 
formally with an act of self-exenteration, to put them- 
selves in the attitude of receiving instead of giving, not 
of mastering but of being mastered. In theology, warped 
as our judgment so often is by preconceived notions, how 
few attain to even this preliminary step ! but, after all, 
the real difficulty, in many cases, is in what spirit was this 
or that book originally written, this or that march of 
imagery originally projected ? Sometimes the drift of an 
author may be plain enough, and then self-exenteration, 
coupled with the necessary capacity of sympathy, will do 
the perfect work of hermeneutics ; but in those cases, not 
unfrequent in the higher literature of all nations, where 
such a wild thing as a poet's fancy has wedded itself to 
such a loose thing as a popular mythology, then, to 
discern clearly by what spirit the phantasmal progeny 
of such conjunction is inhabited, requires sometimes no 
vulgar divination. In investigations of this description a 
curious accuracy and a philosophical profundity will often 
lead us as far out of the true path as a loose and ramb- 

(2.) Mrs. Browning. London, 1833. — results of learned speculation on the 

(3.) Chapman in Blackwood's Magazine, subject. The works named contain as 

1836. — (4.) Swayne. Oxford, 1846. — various a range of conflicting views as 

(5.) Prowett. Cambridge, 1846. is necessary for exhausting everything 

of importance that can be said on the 

N.B. — It is not intended in the fol- cardinal point ; nevertheless the writer 

lowing remarks to make a formal review regrets extremely that it has not been 

of the above works ; but they are placed in his power to add to the above list a 

here merely to indicate that the writer review of Schoemann's work in the 

of the present article has read them Wiener Jahrbilcher for 1845, vol. 109, 

all. has reaped the benefit of their re- called "able" by Grote, Hist, of Greece, 

searches, and has had them in view in vol. i. p. 104. The most recent opinions 

the expression and arrangement of his of Hermann also he has not seen ; but 

own opinions. It has at the same time Schoemann, in the Correspondence, No. 

been his desire to make the present 10, above, says that he has adopted the 

paper, without being cumbrous, one of views of Caesar, the merits of which will 

as extensive reference as possible to the be discussed below. 



62 ON THE' PROMETHEUS BOUND OF jESCHYLUS. 

ling superficiality ; and, if it should happen also that the 
artistical creation which we would comprehend exists no 
longer in its perfect shape, but only as a trunk with head 
and legs cut off, a yet more perplexing element of con- 
fusion and dubiety is introduced ; for it is seldom or never 
the case with imaginative works, as with the fossil organi- 
zations which belong to the science of geology, that the 
glance of a Cuvier can reconstruct the harmony of a whole 
from the wrecks of a part. A combination of all these 
elements tending to trouble the aesthetical vision, and to 
perplex the judgment, is presented in the Pbometheus 
Bound of iEschylus ; and the consequence has been, that 
in few fields of philological criticism — always excepting 
the great Homeric and Roman questions started by Wolf 
and Niebuhr — has the recent literature of luxuriant Ger- 
many been more prolific. England also, as became a 
country in which classical literature is a sort of national 
watchword, has not been altogether silent ; but our direct 
and practical character has on this, as on so many other 
occasions, shown itself averse to enter that region of 
moral and religious speculation to which the profounder 
intelligence of the Prometheus belongs. We accordingly 
have more to show in the way of translation than of specu- 
lation ; and if we will boast of our imaginative sympathy 
with the iEschylean Prometheus — for we speak not here 
of mere verbal criticism — are wise to turn from the 
ranks of the philologers to the poets, proud to compen- 
sate ourselves for the lack of the cumbrous erudition of a 
Bellmann, the acuteness of a Weiske, and the ingenuity 
of a Welcker, with the possession of a genius at once so 
subtly Hellenic, and so grandly iEschylean, as Percy 
Bysshe Shelley. 

It is indeed not the least remarkable feature of the 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF AESCHYLUS. 03 

Promethean legend, that, while it received a more than 
common prominence in antiquity, from being adopted at 
different and most diverse periods by the genius of a 
Hesiod, an iEschylus, and a Plato — not to mention the 
popular persiflage of a Lucian in later times — it has, in 
the age which has just gone by, been transferred into the 
popular currency of modern literature by four men so 
high above the vulgar mark, as Goethe and Herder in 
Germany, and among our own countrymen, Byron and 
Shelley. This contemporary appropriation of an exotic 
theme by men in many respects far from similar, deserves 
the attention of the philosophical critic, as a most impor- 
tant testimony to the deep human interest and moral signi- 
ficancy of the myth ; and, while it brings the subject out 
of the narrow circle of antiquarian disquisition into the 
wide range of living European sentiment, excites further 
the curious and interesting inquiry, how far the general 
impression of the iEschylean drama made on the mind of 
the greatest European poets has been identical with, or 
different from that which, there may be good reason to 
believe, it must have made on an Athenian audience. 
Such a question is one of the most interesting that pos- 
sibly can be raised in the criticism of the classics ; and 
we shall not, therefore, crave the pardon of the more 
learned reader, if we introduce the more strictly philolo- 
gical part of the present inquiry, by a distinct statement 
of the place which the Prometheus holds in the general 
sympathy of European readers, by virtue of the genius of 
the great poets just mentioned. We shall thus propose 
for ourselves a distinct critical problem to be solved, — 
how far the popular impression of the Promethean legend 
is, or is not, consistent with the spirit in which it was 
originally conceived. 



C4 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF JESCHYLUS. 

No reader interested in such questions, we may well 
presume, will require from us in this place a detailed 
narrative of the plot of the Prometheus, as it is presented 
in the play of iEschylus. The action is at once so simple 
in itself, and so familiar to every cultivated imagination, 
that to set it forth in curious detail would seem but a 
pedantic attempt to fritter away the impression of a 
gigantic whole, that stands like a permanent background 
in the picture gallery of the mind. The " high-counselled 
son of Iapetus and Themis" chained to a rock in wintry 
Scythia, for a crime that appears no crime, — the stealing 
of fire from heaven, and teaching the use of it to mortal 
men, contrary to the will of Jove ; the calm defiance 
which he breathes against his Olympian adversary, and 
the spirit of firm self-sustainment by which, through ages 
of unmitigated torture, he is supported ; the wide untrod- 
den waste of solitude around him, interrupted only by 
the sympathetic utterances of the Ocean maids, and the 
friendly but fruitless expostulations of old father Ocean 
himself; then, like a darker shade upon the grand picture 
(remaining stationary and unchanged through the piece), 
the shrieking lamentations of the " many- wandering" Io, 
the " horned maid/' the persecuted daughter of Inachus, 
the innocent victim of the love of Jove, and the jealousy 
of Hera ; and lastly, the messenger sent direct from the 
Olympian himself to besiege the constancy of the rebel- 
lious Titan with threats of thunder and precipitation into 
Tartarus ; and the catastrophe of the piece in the actual 
execution of these threats : — all this stands in grand and 
vivid outline so familiarly before the imagination of the 
scholar, that a more detailed statement of the general argu- 
ment may well be spared, while particular passages will 
more conveniently be brought forward under the different 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF jESCHYLUS. Go 

heads of the discussion to which they belong. We proceed, 
therefore, without preface, to inquire what is the general 
impression which the iEschylean play has made upon those 
who, primd facie, are the fittest representatives of the 
moral effect produced by it on cultivated minds in modern 
times ; we mean Herder and Goethe, Byron and Shelley, 
in the first place ; and second to them, the English trans- 
lators, who, not being scholars by profession, have accom- 
panied their versions by remarks on the aBsthetical and 
moral character of the piece ; to whom we shall add 
Schlegel, as representing the modern dramatic critics. 
We shall then bring the opinions of these parties — not the 
less valuable in some views because they represent in this 
question the laity, and not the clergy of scholarship — 
into contact and collision with the results of the most 
recent learned investigation on the subject ; and out of 
these conflicting elements endeavour to inquire what har- 
monious reconciliation of apparently incompatible views 
may be producible. 

First, therefore, let us hear Byron, the poet who of all 
others in modern times has produced and re-produced a 
type of character in his works, that in its tones of lonely 
grandeur, high defiance, and self-sustained isolation, bears 
a strong resemblance to the Prometheus of iEschylus. 1 
Byron's conception of the character of the Titan is the 
more interesting that we have his own assurance for the 
fact, of the deep impression which the iEschylean drama, 
at an early period, made on his mind. 

1 Mazstred, as Lord Jeffrey well re- with Goethe's Faust belongs to the 

marked, is, in " tone and pitch," a true form of the first scenes merely, scarcely 

modern Prometheus. This essential .more. — See Byron's own notes to Man- 

kinship Byron himself at once avowed, /red. 
while the connexion of the same poem 

E 



06 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF ^SCHYLUS. 

" Thy godlike crime was to be kind, 
To render with thy precepts less 
The sum of human wretchedness, 
And strengthen man with his own mind ; 
But baffled as thou wert from high, 
Still in thy patient energy, 
In the endurance and repulse 
Of thine impenetrable spirit, 
Which earth and heaven could not convulse, 
A mighty lesson we inherit : 
Thou art a symbol and a sign 
To mortals of their fate and force ; 
Like thee, man is in part divine, 
A troubled stream from a pure source ; 
And man in portions can foresee 
His own funereal destiny; 
His wretchedness and his resistance, 
And his sad un allied existence : 
To which his spirit may oppose 
Itself — an equal to all woes, 
And a firm will and a deep sense, 
Which even in torture can descry 
Its own concenter'd recompense, 
Triumphant where it dares defy, 
And making death a victory." 

The author of Manfred therefore saw in Prometheus a 
type of human nature, and that in its noblest aspect ; 
activity hallowed by love, and suffering consecrated by 
endurance. Prometheus is the martyr of humanity, the 
champion of intellectual freedom against all brutish, un- 
reasoning powers ; " faith which worketh by love/' to 
adopt an apostolic phrase, oppressed beneath the tempo- 
rary ascendency of evil, but not prostrate. In this view 
Prometheus is an ideal of moral perfection, as his adver- 
sary is an incarnation of malignity. 

" The inexorable Heaven 

And the deaf tyranny of Fate, 
The ruling principle of HATE, 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF JESCHYLUS. 67 

Which for its pleasure doth create 
The things it may annihilate." 

To the same purpose Shelley — 

" To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite, 
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night, 
To defy power which seems omnipotent, 
To love and bear, to hope till Hope creates 
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates ; 
Neither to change, nor flatter, nor repent : 
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be 
Good, great and joyous, beautiful, and free. 
This is alone life, joy, empire and victory." 

Substantially identical with these views, though dif- 
ferent in a not unimportant point, which we shall notice 
anon, is the idea of Herder, who, in the Preface to his 
Prometheus Unbound, 1 finds the most nob]e, and perhaps 
the most natural, sense of the myth to be " the progress 
of the human race in every sort of culture ; the continued 
striving of the Divine Spirit in man for the awakening of 
all his powers." Akin in the main tendency, though 
singularly modified by the peculiar mental constitution of 
the writer, is the representation of Goethe, who, out of 
the rich fulness of moral excellence embodied by Byron 
and Shelley, in the character of Prometheus, has selected 
the one element of artistic activity, and made it the subject 
of a lyrical composition, as classically chaste in the execu- 
tion as it is sublime and original in the conception. The 
whole poem, though very far removed from the ^Eschylean 
idea of Prometheus, agrees with it strikingly in one point, 
an attitude of defiance towards the Olympian powers 
and a tone of irreverence, real or apparent, which escapes 
many a modern reader in the Greek drama, only because 

1 Drainatische StiicJce und Dichtungen; Aesthetische Werhe. vol. vi. Edit. 1806. 



68 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF jESCHYLUS. 

he lives habitually in the conviction that Jove is " nothing 
in the world," a mere idol, perhaps a devil, 
" And devils to adore for deities," 
towards whom reverence were a greater moral perversion 
of sentiment than contempt. 

" Deem'st thou that I should hate my life, 
And into deserts flee, 
Because I could not see 
All blossoms of my dreamings rife 1 
Here sit I, and with life inspire 
A race that shall be like their sire ; 
Who shall know beneath the skies 
To suffer and to weep, 
To enjoy and to rejoice, 
And thee and thine even so despise 
As I do!" 1 

The reader will observe, what is a point of main 
importance to start with, that all these representations 
agree in exhibiting Prometheus as a heroic character of 
the highest order, a martyr, and a champion worthy of 
our most unqualified love and admiration. Nor are we 
allowed to forget, in these modern reproductions of the 
pregnant old myth, the quality so essential to the concep- 
tion of Prometheus, that, while he is the spokesman and 
representative of man, he is in his own nature no man, but 
a god, at least a demigod ; a being with all the gigantic, 
intellectual, and moral proportions, but without the moral 
perversity of Milton's Satan. This similitude and contrast 
has been vividly perceived, and felicitously expressed by 
Mrs. Browning in the following passage : — 

" But Prometheus stands eminent and alone ; one of the 

1 Goethe, in this passage, has adopted nothing of this, and iEschylus as little, 

that comparatively modern exaggeration — See the masterly historical develop- 

of the myth, which represents its hero ment in Weiske. 
as the creator of man. Hesiod knows 



OJSf TEE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF jESCHYLUS. G9 

most original and grand and attaching characters ever conceived by 
the mind of man. That conception sank deep into the soul of Milton, 
and, as has been observed, rose from thence in the likeness of his Satan. 
But the Satan of Milton and the Prometheus of ^Eschylus stand upon 
ground as unequal as do the sublime of sin and the sublime of virtue. 
Satan suffered from his ambition ; Prometheus from his humanity : 
Satan for himself; Prometheus for mankind : Satan dared peril which 
he had not weighed ; Prometheus devoted himself to sorrows which 
he had foreknown. " Better to rule in hell," said Satan ; " " better to 
serve this rock," said Prometheus. But in his hell Satan yearned to 
associate man, while Prometheus preferred a solitary agony ; nay, he 
even permitted his zeal and tenderness for the peace of others to 
abstract him from that agony's intenseness." 

After this strongly put antithesis, we snail not "be sur- 
prised if other students of the Prometheus have ventured 
upon a comparison that to some may appear bold, and 
even profane ; they have instituted a comparison between 
the tortures of Caucasus and the agonies of Calvary, and 
have not hesitated to employ language in reference to the 
mythical demigod of Greek fiction, similar to that which 
Christians are every day in the habit of using with regard 
to the historical founder of their faith. This comparison, 
we have said, may appear unwarrantable and even profane 
to some ; but it is only an appearance. Nothing indeed 
could be more obvious than the parallel : and the simplest 
way to dispel all suspicion of irreverence in the writers is 
to read what they have written. Toepelmann, for one, in 
his excellent little tract, has the following observations 
(p. 69, 70-1) :— 

" Nemo tarn obtuso est ingenio quin animadvertat ad quantam 
Promethei Aeschylei argumentum aliorum populorum revelationis 
divinae accedat similitudinem. Dico autem doctrinam quae Dei filium 
in terram descendisse, homines a malis liberaturum, et meliora de 
rebus divinis docturum exponit. Ac certe si Christiani o-wr^/aos 
vitam et facta cum Prometheo comparemus, primum in eo conveniunt 
quod deorum quisque erudiendo generi humano operam navabat, Chris- 



70 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF jESCHYLUS. 

tus autem spiritualem, Prometheus temporalem hominum mortem 
prohibebat : — 

e^epvad^Tju (3poTol>s 

rod [XT] diappaiadevTas els"Aidov p.d\e?v. — v. 244-5. 

turn vero cuique eorum propter beneficia quibus genus humanum cumu- 
laverat cruciatus erant subeundi. Praeterea autem, quod per interest 
multum Christi perfectionem inter, et Promethei non perfectam natu- 
ram, hoc etiam magnum inter eos discrimen esse apparet, quod ille a 
Deo patre ad opus in terra patrandum legatus sit consentiente eodem 
perfecit, Prometheus, invito deorum patre et irato, generi humano 
multis modis benefecit, ejusque jussu poena est affectus. In quo dis- 
crimine si internam rei Christianae praestantiam in comparationem 
non vocamus, sed solum spectamus utriusque et voluntatem et auda- 
ciam, non possumus Graeci quam de generis humani sospitatore 
sibi conformaverant sententiam Christiana quanquam minus sanctam 
piamque, tamen audaciorem esse non judicare. Nam quod Prometheo 
propter tw <£>L\avdpa)7rov rpoirov, et Sia ttjv Xlav (j>iX6rrjTa fipor&v a 
Jove timenda erant, ea non erant Christo, cui cruciatus illi in coelis 
reduci a patre amantissimo resarciebantur. Ille deos laesit, ut 

HOMINES BEARETj HIC HOMINES BEAVIT, UT SUAE DEIQUE PATRIS 
OBSECUNDARET VOLUNTATI." 

To the same purpose, though in a different connexion, 
a recent English translator : — " Prometheus himself is the 
personification of Divine love, willing, for the sake of man, 
to suffer to the utmost what divine justice could inflict or 
require." 1 In the same direction, though not so far and 
so decidedly, do the well-known observations of A. W. 
Schlegel point ; from which, as translated by Black, and 
adopted by Captain Medwyn, we extract the following: — 

" The chained Prometheus is the representation of constancy under 
suffering, and that the never-ending suffering of a god. Though the 
scene exhibits the principal person exiled to a naked rock on the shore 
of the encircling ocean, this drama still embraces the world, the Olym- 
pus of the gods, and the earth of mortals, all scarcely yet reposing in 
a secure state above the dread abyss of the dark Titanian powers. 
This idea of a self-devoting divinity has been mysteriously inculcated 

1 S wayne's Introduction, p. 12. 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF uESOHYLUS. 71 

in many religions, as a confused foreboding of the true. Here, how- 
ever, it appears in a most alarming contrast with the consolations of 
revelation. For Prometheus does not suffer in an understanding with 
the powers by whom the world is governed, but he atones for his dis- 
obedience, and that disobedience consists in nothing but the attempt 
to give perfection to the human race. He is thus an image of human 
nature itself, endowed with a miserable foresight, and bound down to 
a narrow existence without an ally, and with nothiBg to oppose to the 
combined and inexorable powers of nature but an unshaken will, and 
the consciousness of elevated claims." 

But the most remarkable, and in every way the most 
interesting, parallel drawn between the mythical tortures 
of Caucasus and the real agonies of Calvary, is that drawn 
by our countryman Shelley, who, in his supra-mundane 
poem of the " Prometheus Unbound/' introduces a chorus 
of Furies, endeavouring to terrify the dauntless Titan into 
submission, by conjuring up the phantasmal representation 
of the good and the great in all ages who had suffered for 
the advancement of humanity, but, according to the inter- 
pretation of the chorus, had suffered, and could not but 
have suffered, in vain. Hoav striking are the following 
lines, in which Christ appears as a preacher of righteous- 
ness, but a righteousness so super-excellent, that in the 
hands of abusive mortality, the antidote is changed into a 
poison ! — " Like a jewel of gold in a swine's snout," so is a 
good thing in the hands of a bad user. 

" One came forth of gentle worth, 
Smiling on the sanguine Earth : 
His words outlived him, like swift poison 
Withering up truth, peace, and pity. 
Look where round the wide horizon 
Many a million-peopled city 
Vomits smoke in the bright air. 
Mark that outcry of despair ! 
'Tis his mild and gentle ghost 
Wailing for the faith he kindled." 



72 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF JESCHYLUS. 

And again — 

Fury. 

" Behold an emblem : those who do endure 
Deep wrongs for man, and scorn and chains, but heap 
Thousandfold torment on themselves and him. 

Prometheus. 

Kemit the anguish of that lighted stare ; 
Close those wan lips; let that thorn-wounded brow 
Stream not with blood; it mingles with thy tears ! 
Fix, fix those tortured orbs in peace and death, 
So thy sick throes shade not that crucifix, 
So those pale fingers play not with thy gore. 
horrible ! thy name I will not speak ; 
It hath become a curse. I see, I see 
The wise, the mild, the lofty, and the just, 
Whom thy slaves hate for being like to thee, 
Hunted by foulest lies from their heart's home," etc. etc. 

But of this enough : we have now seen as the first grand 
element in the interpretation of the JEschylean drama, 
what general impression it has made on the intellects of 
the present age, who, being touched with a living poetical 
sympathy, were the most likely to be free from those 
perverse subtilties and unsound refinements which are so 
often wont to perplex the judgment of the learned. But 
the poets also, and the poetical translators, have their 
peculiar professional fallacies, " their idols of the tribe," 
as Bacon phrases it. What love and sympathy with a 
grand idea can understand and appreciate they will 
appreciate ; but they are a wayward and a wanton and 
a licentious race, and oftentimes are themselves the father 
of the child, which they seem but to adopt ; the brand 
which they flourish is taken piously from the altar of the 
god, but the fire with which it is kindled is not seldom 
their own. One must therefore look, not suspiciously 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF jESCHYLUS. 73 

indeed, but narrowly, into their handling of ancient 
myths ; ready to find in the general case a true reflec- 
tion of foreign imagery, but not surprised if here and 
there we are deceived by a home-grown delusion. To 
guard ourselves, therefore, against their one-sidedness, in 
the present inquiry we shall now make a shnilar review 
of the opinions of the learned ; and in doing so we shall 
do ourselves the pleasure to recall and to present promi- 
nently, as one of the last legacies of the scholarship of the 
past century to the present, the opinion of Schiitz : not 
because we think that opinion of much value as a result, 
but because it connects itself most naturally with the views 
already given, and will serve as a most useful stimulant 
to thought in the contrast which it presents to some more 
recent views which we shall have immediate occasion to 
bring under review. 

" Cum primum poeta animuni ad scribendam hane tragoediam 
appulit, id potissimum egisse nobis videtur, ut Atheniensibus acerri- 
mum tyrannidis odium inspiraret, verumque libertatis, qua turn maxime 
fruebantur, amorem tanti mali metu in eorum animis excitaret con- 
firmaretque. Quo consilio Jovem deorum novum regem seu tyrannum 
impotentem finxit, omnia pro arbitrio agentem, jura sibi data negantem, 
omnia suae majestati arrogantem, inexorabilem, asperum, et in amicos 
quoque bene de se meritos, propterea quod suspectos omnes habeat, 
ingratum atque crudelem. 

" In Prometheo vero spectatoribus utilissimum hominis vere popu- 
laris exemplar proposuit, quern, ut ait Horatius, nee vultus instantis 
tyranni, nee civium ardor prava jubentium mente solida quatiat ; qui 
propter generis humani caritatem praepotentis tyranni odium suscipere 
nullus dubitaverit, susceptum autem excelsa animi magnitudine ac 
robore sustineat. Itaque illius humanitas cum Jovis crudelitate, illius 
cupiditas cum hujus bene de omnibus merendi studio, illius effrenata 
ferocia cum hujus moderatione et fortitudine praeclare comparatur. 

" Jupiter universum hominum genus extinguere voluit : Prome- 
theus omnium mortalium vitae ac felicitatis auctor, parens, deus exstitit. 
Prometheus Jovis ad regnum obtinendum adjutor fuerat ; Jupiter Pro- 



74 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF JESCHYLUS. 

metheum, immemor beneficii, nee ullam ob causam, nisi quod eum ob 
nimiam humani generis caritatem suspectum haberet, indignis modis 
vexat, acerbissimisque poenis affligit. Jupiter in summo dignitatis et 
imperii fastigio constitutus omnia libertatis jura diis eripuerat, aequita- 
tem ac justitiam negligebat, sanctissimas antiquissimasque leges pedi- 
bus conculcabat ; Prometheus ne summa quidem miseria sic induratur, 
ut ingenitum humanitatis sensum ex animo amittat; non irascitur 
hominibus, quorum propter amorem tanta se calamitate oppressum 
videt, non exuit pristinam miseris succurrendi voluntatem ; et quam- 
quam se immensis malorum fluctibus mersum videt, idem tamen se 
quam plurimos malorum socios optare candide negat. Jovem ne summa 
quidem potentia a timore liberat, id quod baud obscuro indicio prodit, 
cum vaticinio Promethei perterritus Mercurium ad eum ablegat, omni- 
busque minis ac terroribus, pertinacissimum quo ille nuptias Jovi 
periculosas premebat, silentium vincere atque expugnare cupit ; Pro- 
metlieum vero, quamvis omnibus artubus deligatum et constrictum, 
non Ohori sollicitudo benevolentiae plena, non Oceani mitiora remedia 
suadentis arnica consilia, non Ius miseris furoribus vagisque cursibus 
unius Jovis ob noxam agitatae horrores, non saevae Mercurii commina- 
tiones, non denique aeris marisque tumultus, non coeli terraeque ruinae 
molliunt ac frangunt. Ecce justum ilium ac tenacem propositi virum ! 
Ecce virum fortem cum mala fortuna compositum ! " 



This view of Schiitz, which substantially agrees with 
that of Byron and Shelley, may stand also for the opinion of 
a great German Hellenist, whose leading sympathies seem 
rather to go with the philologists of the last century than 
with those of the present ; — we mean Godfrey Hermann. 
This writer, in his dissertation on the Prometheus Unbound, 1 
while he has expended his strength on many debated 
polemical points of lesser moment, has, with regard to the 
main idea of the drama, contented himself with repeat- 
ing Schutz's view in the single sentence, that the ancient 
tragic poet wished to please and to instruct, " non per 
enigmata abstrusae cujusdam sapientiae, sed 'per viva con- 
stanticie, fortitudinis, animi magnitudinis exempla" Thus 

1 Opusc. iv. 253. 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF jESCHYLUS. 75 

far, therefore, the academical men, and the imaginative 
men, seem to be at one ; only, as is fitting, the former 
give themselves a less various scope, and confine them- 
selves within a more narrow range. They take the indi- 
vidual instance as it is presented in the individual play, 
and content themselves with admiring the heroic repre- 
sentation of virtuous fortitude ; the comprehensive glance 
of the poet sees in the fate of the individual the type of 
the whole, in the torture of the son of lapetus the destiny 
of the sons of Adam. Unquestionably the prominence 
given by iEschylus to the merits of his hero, as the inventor 
of the useful arts (v. 436-506), must force us to admit the 
general idea of human progress, as no less essential than 
that of fortitude to the iEschylean conception of the 
myth ; and it is with pleasure, therefore, that we find in 
Bellmann, a man of learning and speculation, 1 who launches 
largely out with all the cumbrous equipments of German 
erudition, into the wide region over which the winged 
Muse of Shelley delighted to wander ; and in the striv- 
ings and sufferings of the mythic Titan sees clearly adum- 
brated the " historia generis humani qualis omni tempore 
obtineret" (p. 59), The men of learning, therefore, with 
Bellmann to supply the deficiencies of Schutz and Hermann, 
so far as we hitherto see, give their cordial support to the 
view of the Promethean legend generated in the greatest 
poetical minds of modern times. All agree in conceiving 
the iEschylean Prometheus as an ideal, either of moral 
perfection and human progress generally, " summa quam 
mente animoque complectaris jperfectio" (Bellmann, p. 44), 
or of the special virtues of disinterested generosity and 

1 We concur, however, heartily with bares Buck." — The author is one of 
Schoemann's pithy characteristic of the those writers who would have been much 
313 pages " de ternione — tin schwer les- more intelligible in his mother tongue. 



76 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF JESCHYLUS. 

manly fortitude. And there can be little doubt, further, 
that this view of the matter is not the opinion of Her- 
mann's party in Germany only, or of the Byronic school 
of poetry in England ; it is in a most wide and compre- 
hensive sense the general opinion. Ninety-nine hundreds 
of all the thousands of European youths who have read 
the Prometheus, in school or college, since the days ol 
Erasmus and Melanchthon until now, never formed any 
other opinion. There is therefore a presumption estab- 
lished in its favour, to which, if we are not strangely 
pledged to our own conceits, we are bound to pay no idle 
respect. If we dissent from such a weight of old estab- 
lished authority and precedent, we are bound, in lawyer's 
phrase, to show strong cause ; we must come, like Niebuhr, 
with a club in our hand that will become stronger the more 
blows it deals. Let us proceed, therefore, to inquire what 
the grounds are of the new views, which have within the 
present century, and mostly within the last few years (spe- 
cially by Welcker, Klausen, Lasaulx, and Schoemann), 1 
been propounded on this subject. 

In commencing this inquiry, the first question is, 
What gave occasion to these views ? Was it the mere 
restless spirit of German speculation, ever eager for a new 
cobweb ? or did they spring from the natural and legi- 
timate source of new speculation — from any felt insuffi- 
ciency in the received theory — from any secret, but not 
the less formidable, difficulty which the current hypothesis 
left unexplained ? If this question be fairly asked, fair- 
ness will also answer, that the new theories, whether true 
or false, were anything but uncalled for. There is, in fact, 



1 Welshes closely reasoned and tho- when it had arrived at the point from 
rough work was unfortunately inter- which iEschylus started. We have read 
rupted by the death of the writer, just it, however, with much profit. 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF ^ESCHYLUS. 77 

a great stumbling-block and offence in the received expla- 
nation, which has been felt not oftener, only because those 
who are inclined or forced to feel it are, from the nature 
of the case, necessarily few. So long as a man looks 
at a noble range of mountains merely as a prospect, the 
most barren rocks may be the most beautiful ; but when 
he walks up to them, and sits down to dwell among them, 
other considerations force themselves very seriously on his 
attention. An Englishman reads the Prometheus Bound 
as a play, and is delighted, carried away, and possessed by 
the idea of self-sustaining virtue that seems incarnated in 
the principal character ; it never enters his mind to inquire 
how an Athenian, beholding this sacred opera (for such the 
Greek tragedy was), represented at the feast of Dionysus 
as an act of religious worship, was religiously moved by the 
exhibition. If, according to the view of all the authors 
hitherto quoted, Prometheus appears as the most op- 
pressed of martyrs, and Zeus as the most unjust of tyrants, 
the question arises, how an Athenian audience, an audi- 
ence proverbially remarkable for SeuriScu/jLovta (Act. Apost. 
xvii. 22), at a solemn religious festival on the public stage, 
could tolerate such a representation ? This is a grave 
difficulty certainly; and it is a difficulty which the received 
theory of the Prometheus either altogether overlooks, or 
in a way not very satisfactory endeavours to obviate. The 
majority of general readers, little concerned to maintain 
the honour of Jove, have, in all probability, never proposed 
to themselves the question. A certain school of theolo- 
gians also may have been well satisfied to have it believed, 
that the refined audience of the most highly cultivated 
city of the ancient world could be content to sit quietly 
on the seats of the public theatre, and hear their supreme 
deity, " the king of gods and men," openly blasphemed. 



78 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF MSCHYLUS. 

This view of the matter, if it be the real one, were cer- 
tainly a rare illustration for those partial declaimers who 
know no more cunning way of exhibiting the brightness 
of Christianity, than by smearing the face of heathenism 
indiscriminately over with pitch ; but the philologists by 
profession were bound, as a matter of duty, not only not to 
overlook this formidable difficulty, but to do something, if 
it might be done fairly, to redeem Greece from the mon- 
strous reproach of a theology altogether without moral 
distinctions, and a religion altogether without reverence. 
It is this very natural, and we may say necessary feeling 
on the part of the philologists, that has given rise to much 
of the recent discussion on the subject ; a discussion, the 
reader will observe, of the most vital importance, not 
only to the classical scholar, but to the theologian and the 
philosopher ; and which at once transfers the Promethean 
myth from the vague floating limbo of poetical fancy into 
the earnest central point, a point to be found only in a 
man's own heart, of religious philosophy. Not without a 
very significant propriety, therefore, has Professor Lasaulx 
entitled his recent tract on this subject " a contribution 
to the philosophy of religion;" and, though we may not 
pledge ourselves to all his views, we cannot but think 
there is a great general truth — and a truth specially 
applicable to the Prometheus — contained in the following 
observations with which he ushers in his treatise : — 



" The mythology of the heathen nations of antiquity stands before 
us as a mysterious dream-like depicturement of ante-historical huma- 
nity, a dreamy prophecy, of which the true significance was given only, 
when the destined ages were completed, in the person of Him who was 
more than all prophets, in Christ, — of Him whose victorious voice broke 
the charm of the old serpent, and, redeeming the hitherto unblest 
race of mortal men from the slavery of sin and of the law, brought 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF JESGHYLUS. 79 

them into the perfect freedom of the children of God. The beginning, 
and the first-born of every creature, the image of the invisible God, 
the pattern at once of us and of the world, did, in His character of the 
first-born Son of the God of all gods, embrace in Himself all gods that 
afterwards appeared. 

" Considered in this light, profane history, no less than the history 
of the Hebrews, appears as invested with a typical character fore- 
shadowing Christianity ; and from the history of the religions of anti- 
quity there may be restored and reconstructed a second apocryphal 
Old Testament, which, along with that canonical one which we already 
have, finds its progression and its fulfilment in the New Testament. 
To show how in the collective world, before Christ actually appeared, 
the germ of His coming was contained — how it was clearly prophesied 
in Judaism, and in Heathenism everywhere divined and anticipated ; 
how the desired of all nations was revealed, under different forms, 
both among the heathens and among the Jews : to set forth this in 
detail, is the problem of a Christian philosophy of religion, to which 
the present remarks on the Prometheus are to be regarded as a con- 
tribution." 

No doubt this view, which sees in heathenism a sort 
of imperfectly foreshadowed and dimly anticipated Chris- 
tianity, is capable of very great abuse in its application, 
and must be received as true only to some extent, and 
in some cases ; but in so far as it asserts the essential 
religious unity of human nature in all ages, though it be 
a unity that manifests itself by gradations, the philo- 
sophic mind will readily acknowledge it as a most pregnant 
and most significant truth. Such a mind certainly will 
not rashly exclude the common religious sentiment from 
the heart of a whole people, any more than it will expect 
to find an identity of religious insight in nations the most 
diverse in capacity and in situation. It will be disposed 
to handle a religious question among heathen Greeks and 
Romans no less than among Christians, seriously as a reli- 
gious question ; and it will not be inclined gratuitously 
to suppose that a nation, in every other respect the most 



80 ON THE PROMETHEUS BMJND OF AESCHYLUS. 

highly developed, should in religion only present a con- 
fusion of the most abnormal aberrations, and a farrago of 
the most portentous monstrosities. So far, and so far only, 
do we request the English reader to receive with favour 
the views of those German writers, such as Lasaulx and 
Schoemann, who have prominently brought forward the 
religious and the peculiarly Christian element in the 
Prometheus, in a way, as we shall see, quite opposed to 
that glorification of man, as it should almost seem, at the 
expense of Jove, which we have found in Shelley 1 and 
Bellmann. For, to enter upon the wild domain of mytho- 
logy, even in cultivated Greece, so full of moral crudities 
of all sorts, with a systematic predetermination to make 
the " wisdom of the ancients" appear to have been in 
all cases as great as possible, were an extreme equally 
remote from the chance of truth, with the negative and 
unfruitful principle to which it is opposed ; and in this 
regard the caution of Hermann, against seeking in every 
old legend " enigmata abstrusae cujusdam sapientiae," 
is most necessary ; though certainly, with regard to this 
particular matter of the Promethean myth, the darkest 
enigmas of the most abstruse wisdom are not more worth- 
less in the way of elucidation than the flat prosaic expla- 
nation — after the manner of Euhemerus — which Hermann 
himself, in his dissertation " on the most ancient mytho- 



1 This observation applies strictly to Prometheus as a moral ideal. In his 

Jove as the god of JSschylus and of Preface he distinctly states, that in his 

Greece. As for Shelley personally, he poem he delineates Prometheus as he 

has, in his Prometheus (Act II. Sc. 4), would wish to see him delineated, not 

nobly shaken himself free from that exactly as ^Eschylus, following the pre- 

strange atheism, which is enunciated in scribed course of the mythologic legend, 

Queen Mab. This great poet, indeed, would have worked out the catastrophe, 

is in no wise chargeable with the con- The whole passage will be given in a 

sequences that flow from the assump- more appropriate place below, 
tion, that ./Eschylus meant to represent 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF ^ESCHYLUS. 81 

logy of the Greeks" (Opusc. n. 186), has enunciated. But 
to proceed : — 

Schiitz, who, in common with Byron and Shelley, 
represents the supreme god of the Greeks as a cruel and 
unprincipled tyrant, was not, as a philologist, altogether 
blind to the grand religious difficulty which we have stated; 
but in attempting to cut gallantly, it appears to us that 
he only grazes lightly by the Gordian knot, and allows 
himself to be deceived by an unsubstantial glamour. His 
words are these : — 

" Quod vero .ZEschylus sub Jovis nomine, quern deorum hominumque 
regem venerabatur populus, tyrannorum injustitiam et crudelitatem 
castigavit, id sane, si res ad veram aetatis nostrae de Dei numine philo- 
sophandi rationem exigenda esset, impium et sceleratum, populique 
nioribus perniciosum fuisset ; cum autem istis de Jove opinionibus tota 
Graecorum natio dudum imbuta esset, non magis in poeta nostro quam 
in Homero reprehendi debet, eum humana potius ad Deos, quam quae 
vere divina essent, ad homines transtulisse." 

And to the same effect Hermann (Opusc. iv. 256), 
" neque utile quserere (et quaesivere quidam) quomodo in 
Jovis persona crudelissimi tyranni exemplum proponere 
potuerit poeta. Neque habuerunt ista apud Grsecos offen- 
sionem, nee potuerunt habere, ut in religionibus quae totse 
ex hujuscemodi fabulis essent compositse." We are not 
to express surprise, says Hermann, at the glaring impiety 
and irreverential audacity of the Prometheus, " because 
the ivhole Greek religion is full of such things!' Now there 
is a great general truth in these words, but which, when 
narrowly examined, will be found insufficient to explain 
the phenomena of the present case. It is quite true that 
in many of the theological legends of the Greeks no ideas 
of a character entitled to the name of moral are discover- 
able. Every school-boy feels this. As little is it to be 



82 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF JESCHYLUS. 

denied that, in many familiar instances with which the 
pages of Homer teem, the relation between man and God 
seems to have appeared to the most ancient Greek mind 
rather as a relation of contrariety and opposition than as 
one of submission and subjection, much less of love. The 
gods, according to the rude popular conception, seem more 
ready to fear the greatness of man than to approve his 
virtue. Their justice shows rather like jealousy; and 
their wrath has the inspiration of revenge. Crude ideas 
of this kind are common to the theological conceptions of 
all barbarous or semi-civilized peoples. In the Iliad a 
Diomede encounters Mars in the fight ; the mortal routs 
the immortal ; and it is nothing strange. Why then 
should we allow our fastidious moral sense, trained as it 
has been and cultivated by the Christianity of 2000 years, 
to take hasty offence at the quarrel between the son of 
Iapetus and the son of Kronos, and the freedom of speech 
which the bold-mouthed poet allows the former ? Such is 
the argument of Hermann and Schtitz, stated as strongly 
as we can put it. Still we say it throws only a pleasant 
mist about the subject, and does not approach the diffi- 
culty. For, in the first place, it does not follow, accord- 
ing to the Homeric theology, that because a mortal like 
Diomede, with the assistance of one god — Pallas Athene 
— may get the better of another, therefore a mortal, or 
an inferior god, like Prometheus, may ride triumphantly 
over the supremacy of Zeu? v^lcttos, fie^iero? ; much less 
does it follow that a modem poet like iEschylus — for such 
he was to the Greeks who witnessed his plays — may seize 
upon any old religious legend which seems to place the 
supreme god of the country in an odious light, dress up 
and systematically exaggerate its odiousness, and, upon 
the open stage of a religious metropolis, hold up the 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF sESCHYLUS. 83 

object of general worship to public hatred and contempt. 
There is manifestly a great and most unallowable jump 
in this logic. It is one thing to say that a popular 
mythology contains many unworthy and immoral stories 
of the gods ; another and altogether a different thing to 
maintain, that a dramatist in a religious country shall, 
without offence, exhibit a native religious tradition in 
such a shape and manner, that its whole theme shall be 
rebellion, its drift impiety, its spirit the spirit of scoffing, 
and its eloquence the breath of blasphemy. A public 
exhibition of this kind is, in our opinion, as man is 
constituted, morally impossible ; not even the Bushmen, 

i almost or altogether atheists, of South Africa, of whom 
Moffat tells, 1 could achieve such a portent. With regard 

j to Greece, making full allowance for the crudities of its 
early theology, the considerate student will have no diffi- 
culty in adopting the language of Toepelmann (p. 57), 

'" Non licebat poetis tragieis deos religionis vulgaris, 
nedum majorum gentium, nicdos pravosque exhibere et de- 

pingere, ut licitum erat comoediae eos ludibrio laedere." 

I The distinction here made between tragedy and comedy 
has been overlooked by some ; but those who know 
human nature in all its moods, and who have watched it 
specially in some of its religious phases in Italy and Spain, 
will not be slow to acknowledge its important bearing 
on the present question. The manner in which Plautus 
handles Jupiter in the Amphitryo can supply no rule 
whereby to gauge the relation of iEschylus to Zeus in the 

j Prometheus. On the freedom with which poets before the 
Preformation handled churchmen see Dr. M'Crie's Life of 
Knox, c. i. But they never attacked the fundamentals of 

:the popular faith. The case, therefore, as Schutz and 

1 Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa, c. xvi. xvii. 



84 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF ^SCHYLUS. 

Hermann and Bellmann and also Welcker 1 put it, is hope- 
less. iEschylus did not, and could not, in a free country, 
represent the supreme god as an odious tyrant, nor in a 
religious country hold up a daring blasphemer as an object 
of unqualified admiration. Writing under the influence of 
a theology which acknowledged power as the distinctive 
attribute of the supreme god, and relative weakness as 
the characteristic quality of all other beings, whether 
divine or human (see Iliad, vni. init.), under the influ- 
ence of such a universally received conception, the poet 
of the Prometheus did not, and could not intend to repre- 
sent the disobedience of the crafty demi-god as a thing 
absolutely right, much less as a well-grounded rebellion 
of which the success might be conceived probable or even 
possible. Were this the case we might with justice revert 



1 " The Zeus of this tragedy, and 
with him the main part of the mythical 
substratum, is taken from the theogony ; 
but he has changed his character. For 
whatever ideas the theogony may in- 
clude under the type of different celes- 
tial dynasties, one thing is certain, that 
it excludes all idea of moral estimate 
and sequence. iEschylus is not slow 
to perceive his advantage, and uses the 
materials provided for him by the old 
poet, for the rilling up of a far more 
comprehensive plan. He brings studi- 
ously into the foreground every circum- 
stance purely human, that was inter- 
woven with the theologic legend, for the 
purpose of connecting one symbol with 
another ; everything that can be found 
in it tending to place Jove in a disad- 
vantageous light. The supreme god, ac- 
cordingly, appears in this drama, not 
as more godlike, only as more powerful 
than Prometheus, only as the recently 
elevated despot before the unbending 
freeman : the hero that, like an Achilles 



among the gods, breathes a spirit of 
haughty defiance in a pure though not 
quite understood consciousness of good 
deeds. Both are absolutely equal under 
the eternal and jnst sway of destiny. 
The Zeus of this tragedy is represented 
strictly according to the pattern of 
tyrant, and that in the most glaring 
outline : whether in thus painting him 
the Persian invader was in the imagina- 
tion of the soldier who fought at Mara- 
thon, or, as I rather think, only Grecian 
history and politics in general, that by 
this representation of the free-minded 
Titan, he might fan the flames of free- 
dom in the hearts of his countrymen 
or finally, his object might be only tc 
give free scope to his own feelings as 
they had been fostered during his resi 
dence in Sicily, a country in whicl 
he had the image of a just and equit 
able sovereign before him, which migh" 
readily suggest its counterpart in th» 
character of the despotical son of Kro 
nos."— Trll. p. 21-2. 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF JESCHYLUS. 85 

to the ready criticism of the old French school, and give 
our verdict coolly in the words of La Harpe, " Le sujet 
de Promethee est monstrueax." 

We have called Prometheus a demi-god. He calls 
himself a god in the play (v. 92), and Hephaestus bears 
testimony to the propriety of the addition (v. 14). Some 
persons have been eager to make much of this point, and 
to bring it forward as a key to the otherwise inexplicable 
impiety of the piece. Had Prometheus been a mere man, 
they argue, iEschylus, in writing as he has written, would 
have been justly chargeable with blasphemy; but a god may 
surely be allowed to battle with a god, not with words only 
but with blows, and, according to the Greek ideas, no 
offence result. But, in the first place, the supremacy of 
Jove, according to the idea of the Iliad, whatever changes 
of celestial dynasty may have preceded, is an established 
fact that admits no question. 1 Gods, in the Homeric 
theology, may justly battle with gods ; but Zeus is god in 
a higher sense, sitting apart from the vulgar throng — 

' A/cporaTT] Kopvtprj wdkvBeipaBos OvkvpuToio, 

', serene where all are troubled, supreme where all are 
subordinate. And if the dynasty of Jove — though a thing 
that had an acknowledged beginning — was, in the days 
of Homer, a power beyond the power of popular concep- 
tion or poetic fancy to shake, how much more in the days 
of iEsehylus ? In the second place, the rank which Pro- 

1 Such representations as that in faith in the time of Homer, much less 
Iliad, i. 400, where Here, Poseidon, in the age of iEschylus. Besides, in all 
and Pallas are said to have conspired such legends — even in the portentous 
to bind Jove, are, in our opinion, to be heaven- stormings of Hindu Yogees — 
looked on as fragments of the old amor- the supreme god always retains his 
phous theology of the rudest Pelasgi, seat. The fiction of possible dethrone- 
long before the age of Homer, and as ment seems to have been devised partly 
| forming no living element of religious to show the stability of the throne. 



86 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF JESCHYLUS. 

metheus held as a god in the popular faith of Greece was 
practically very low ; theoretically indeed, that is to say, 
according to the genealogy of Hesiod, he appears as the 
contemporary and the equal of Jove, the son of Iapetus, 
and the son of Kronos, being, in fact, brothers' sons ; but, 
as in the aristocratic arrangements of modern society, the 
elder and younger branches of the family often share very 
different fates, so in the world-upheaving turmoil of Titanic 
contention, the lines of lineal and collateral relationship in 
the celestial family were strangely disturbed ; and, as ages 
rolled on, the degree of divinity in competing candidates 
for popular homage was estimated, not by the descent, but 
by the event. Thus, in the days of iEschylus, the cousin 
of Jove had become a local demi-god, the patron-saint of 
the potters in the Ceramicus — scarcely a degree more. 1 
In the third place, let Prometheus be perched as high as 
we will in the scale of divinity, we never can overlook the 
fact, that not only in the representation of iEschylus, but 
in the old popular representation, so far as we know it, 
everywhere and characteristically Prometheus appears as 
the representative of man. Whatever his original descent, 
he has in the course of the fated aeons identified himself 
with man, and stands forward as the living impersonation 
of human interests as opposed to divine. 2 This character 
of the legend is admitted by all who have been at pains 
to receive it into their imaginations purely as it is given 
by the Greek authorities ; and if so, the struggle of the 
Titan against the Olympian is in fact not merely a new 

1 See the whole subject of the wor- power, is altogether lost sight of by alle- 
ship of Prometheus in Athens, admir- gorizers like Swayne, who arbitrarily 
ably handled by Weislce, pp. 497-521. makes Prometheus the representative 

of divine love, satisfying the demands oi 

2 This essential contrast between divine justice. See above. — This Keen- 
Prometheus, as the representative of tious Christianizing of Hellenic myths 
man, and Zeus, as the highest celestial can lead to nothing but confusion. 






ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF sESCHYLUS. 87 

scene in the great primeval battle of the gods, but an 
ominous collision between earth and heaven, an unequal 
contest between the weakness of man and the omni- 
potence" of Jove. If free in his own right to rebel — 
although even this can scarcely be supposed — yet as the 
representative of man, Prometheus, according to Greek 
ideas, was not blameless, and could not be prosperous in 
his contumacy. 

The office and virtue of Molpa, or Fate in the Greek 
theology, is another point which has been brought forward 
prominently by those who, assuming the perfect rectitude 
of the moral position of Prometheus, are necessitated to 
find in the popular conceptions of religion a superior 
power which may adjudicate between the oppressed Titan 
and the tyrannical son of Kronos. Thus Welcker (p. 88) ; 
thus Bellmann (p. 53) ; nor had they far to go for then- 
arbiter ; Prometheus himself had put into their mouths 
the remarkable passage — 

Chorus. 

TV? ovv avayKT)^ ecrriv oiafcoarpoipos. 

Prom. 

Molpac rpifiopcfrcu, /jLvrj/jioves t Epivves. 

Chorus. 

Tovtcov apa Zevs eariv aaOevecnepos. 

Prom. 

OvKOVV CLV €fCcf)VJOC rye T7]V ireTrpco/uLevrjv. 

In the hands of a modern Christian, or christianizing 
speculator, it requires very little stretch of idea to meta- 
morphose this dim dark power called ireirpcofjuivrj, of which 
we hear so much in the Greek drama, into a regular 



88 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF JESCHYLUS. 

irpovoia, or clear and distinct superintending providence, 
which shall hold the balance of fates human and divine 
much more equitably than Zeus does in the Iliad. But 
to prove that the Greeks in the days of iEschylus, or the 
ancients indeed anywhere (except here and there, per- 
haps, in the pious paragraphs of a Marcus Antoninus), had 
any idea of a superintending and retributive irpovoia, above 
and beyond, and even contrary to the will of Jove, who is 
emphatically called firjTiera Zevs — the counsellor ; this is a 
very different affair, and will, we fear, go far beyond the 
strength of those who shall attempt to make it out. 
Hesiod very significantly makes the Molpai daughters of 
Night (Theog. 217) ; and in darkness, doubtless, they were 
involved, to the ancient Greek mind, too deep to admit of 
their being employed as definite and legitimate arbiters 
in a strife between the supreme god and a contumacious 
demi-god. Altogether the Molpai seem to present them- 
selves in classical writers more as an unfathomable back- 
ground in which the origin of all things may be supposed to 
lie concealed, than as a prominent personal agency fit for 
the purposes of the dramatic poet ; and with regard to 
Zeus, it is like to prove a very delicate investigation how 
far the doings of the Molpai in the general case are not 
identical with his own will. On this point Schoemann 
in a note has put forward a statement (p. 110) with which 
we are inclined to concur. 

« Why," says Bauer (Symbolik, n. 340), " may the 
Molpa not have been an intelligent principle ? A moral 
harmony, the idea of an eternal justice dispensing to each 
his proper lot, and with severity anticipating every trans- 
gression of the appointed limits of different agencies. Such 
an idea, what is it but the great law of the universe which 
preserves in constant equilibrium the world of gods and 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF ^ESCHYLUS. 89 

men, the world both of intelligent beings and of uncon- 
scious nature V "I am of opinion, however, that, accord- 
ing to the Greek conception, this great law of the world 
had never attained to a clear embodiment in the person of 
any individual god, not even in the Molpai. Such a law, 
indeed, rules from the beginning, and determines in the 
last instance all that is and happens ; it is the regulating 
norm of the whole course of the universe : but among all 
the powers endowed with a distinct personality which in 
the course of ages have been evolved, there is no one being 
whose intelligence completely embraces this all-compre- 
hensive law, and possesses it with distinct consciousness 
as a matter of knowledge. Zeus alone stands so high, 
that in the province which belongs to him his intelligence 
invariably harmonizes with that law of the world ; where- 
fore, also, the theogony makes Themis, the conservatrix of 
that law, his spouse, and the Molpai, the dispensers of the 
lots of individual beings, his daughters ; that is to say, by 
means of Jove only are these beings elevated into the sphere 
of intelligence, and from mere physical mights become intel- 
ligent and moral beings. The same relation is expressed 
by others when they represent the Moipai as associated 
round the throne of Zeus (Jto? irapa Opovov a^orarai 6e<ov 

itopevai. — Eurip. Fr. Pel. ap. Stob. Eel. ph. i. 6, 10). But 
that, in any being standing above and beyond Jove, the 
great law of the world became a fact of consciousness in a 
higher degree than in him ; such an imagination is alto- 
gether foreign to the faith of the Greeks." 

Thus far this sensible and very valuable writer. But 
it is not necessary for our present purpose to enter with 
metaphysical curiousness into the exact idea of the ancient 
Greek Molpai. Sufficient for our argument, if in the habi- 
tual conception of the pious Greeks they possessed no such 



90 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF AESCHYLUS. 

powerful and prominent personality as to entitle them to 
be brought in at a dignus vindice nodus when a strife was 
to be laid and a controversy adjudicated between the 
omnipotent autocrat of the sides, and an inferior deity 
recusant. At all events we shall not adopt this theory so 
derogatory to the just supremacy of the king of gods and 
men, till other and more obvious ones, presently to be 
stated, shall have been proved untenable. 

The personal character and religious convictions of 
iEschylus form another element in the consideration of 
this question too important to be omitted. In what 
relation did iEschylus stand to the popular creed of his 
country ? Have we any reason to believe that he wrote his 
Prometheus Bound in the same spirit that Shelley wrote 
his Prometheus Unbound, as a protest against established 
authorities and consuetudinary ideas of all kinds ? — or was 
he a pious believer in that Zeus whom his Prometheus 
blasphemes ? On this subject some notions have been pro- 
pounded by Welcker (Trilog. p. Ill), which, if they could 
be established, would not be without influence in recon- 
ciling us to the startling idea that iEschylus, in the Pro- 
metheus, really intended to enter a protest against the 
Jove of the multitude, and publicly to ridicule the theo- 
logy of Hesiod : — 

" Summing up all that we have said, and keeping in view specially 
the fact that ^Eschylus, both as a philosopher and a person initiated 
into the Eleusinian mysteries, occupied a position, at least in not a few 
views, hostile to the popular creed ; on these premises we are autho- 
rized to conclude, that in the Prometheus Bound, while handling the 
chief points of Hesiod's theogony, it was his object to declare himself 
decidedly (sich nacJidrucklich zu erkldren) both against that system and 
against the Zeus, which is a part of it ; that by the free representation 
of the connexion of the different parts of the theogony, it was his 
purpose to show that the legends of the gods contained in it are to be 
taken only as poetical fictions, and to be carefully separated from that 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF JESCHYLUS. 91 

which really belongs to the divine nature. Spectators who knew all 
these relations, and who were at the same time previously familiar with 
the personal character and the views of the poet, would, without diffi- 
culty, recognise in the Zeus of the Prometheus, not the supreme god 
(den hochsten Gott), but a poetical personage of the theogony ; and they 
would at the same time feel that ^Eschylus had gone beyond the plan 
of the ancient fable, and adapted it to his own purpose of an allegoric 
poem, perhaps not without a passing stroke of satire directed against 
the popular superstitions (oder auch in satyrischer Nehenabsichf). 

These words state the views of a most acute and inge- 
nious man — a man whom all scholars respect ; but we 
shall not refute in detail the baseless theory which they 
contain, not knowing but that the learned author himself 
may have long ago seen the insufficiency of the facts known 
of the life of iEschylus to sustain so strange a conclusion. 
We know, indeed, that the poet was a Pythagorean ; 
Cicero tells us so (Tusc. n. 10) ; it is highly probable also, 
both from external testimony and internal verisimilitude, 
that he was initiated in the mysteries of Eleusis i 1 but 
there is not the vestige of a proof, either that the philo- 
sophy of the son of Mnesarchus, when imbibed most deeply, 
had a tendency to excite in its votaries a feeling of hos- 
tility towards the polytheistic form of religion ; or on the 
other — especially after the investigations of Lobeck — that 
the hierophants of Eleusis were a secret conclave of Attic 
Deists, and the mysteries of the goddess of corn fields a 
discourse on free thinking. As little can be concluded 
from the words of iElian (Yar. Hist. v. 19), Ato-xvko? eKplvero 
ao-6/3e/a? e-rrl tlvl Spd/ian, and the other versions of the same 
story. That a bold and daring genius like iEschylus, 

1 The internal evidence arises from as expounded by Welcker ( Trilog. 106). 

the connexion of iEschylus with Eleu- Against these, on the other hand, we 

sis, his birthplace, along with his strong have the positive declaration of Clemens 

religious sympathies. The external is (Strom, n. 166, Sylburg), and the opi- 

based on Aristoph. Han. 886, taken nion of Lobeck, Aglaoph. I. 82. 
along with Aristot. Nicom. Eth. in. 2, 



92 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF jESCHYLUS. 

amid his many flights into untried regions, should have 
stumbled upon some small matter that might give offence 
to the nice sensibility of Athenian SeLo-iScu/iovla, or, per- 
haps, offer a wished-for handle to the eager malignity 
of Athenian h^oKoirlay is the most natural thing in the 
world. Dante, with a temperament much akin to the 
Greek tragedian, said many things in his divine poem 
sufficiently offensive to the ultra-Romanists, and yet 
remained a very pious bard. It is indeed altogether to 
run counter to the obvious probabilities of the case, in an 
early poet like iEschylus — a poet certainly belonging to the 
more ancient rather than the more modern aspect of Greek 
culture — with a theology so imaginative, so various, and 
so pliant as the Greek, with the natural tendency of all 
highly poetical minds, to adapt and assimilate, rather than 
to reject and disown the received religion, under such 
circumstances to admit, without the most distinct proof, 
the theory of a direct hostility between the faith of a 
popular writer, and the faith of a people to whose moral 
or religious feelings he appealed. When distinct proof, 
however, is asked, it appears plainly enough, that we 
know nothing in fact, and can know nothing, of the reli- 
gious opinions of iEschylus, except in so far as he has 
indicated them in his works ; and to judge by this standard, 
Luther himself, in his Lutheran hymn-book, is not more a 
Lutheran than iEschylus in all his plays — except this 
enigmatical one — is a pious and godly worshipper of Zeus. 1 

1 Since writing the above, we have nature he could fathom, whose character 

read with much pleasure an article in he could despise. Not that he was truly 

the Quarterly Review, vol. lxiv. p. 387, an unbeliever ; the elastic nature of ancient 

which advocates a mild modification of systems saved him from that ; and he 

Welcker's view : — " We speak from the could acquiesce in the de facto dynasty, 

writings of the poet, in saying that the so to speak, of Olympus, while his heart 

very depth of his religious feelings made and his allegiance were elsewhere. There 

him dissatisfied with deities, whose was an earlier, a more dread and mys- 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF JESCHYLUS. 93 

The proof of this assertion of course is the general impres- 
sion left on the mind of those who read his works fre- 
quently and sympathetically : those who wish for a detailed 
and tangible deduction on the subject will find ample 
satisfaction in the well-known work of Klausen. For one, 
the present writer, after not a few years' familiar occupa- 
tion with the plays of iEschylus, can only express his 
conviction of the utter improbability, to use the words of 
the most recent English translator, " that iEschylus, the 
most religious poet of antiquity, should have attempted to 
enlist the sympathies of his audience against the gods of 
his country;" 1 and nothing but the happy felicity of in- 
genious theory in finding arguments to prove itself, can 
explain how a scholar of "Welcker's stature should have 
found only " a sublime Lucian" in the poet of the 



terious theology— nph u>v, — A gam. v. 
170, which had passed away, and been 
superseded indeed, but which still lin- 
gered in the background of the Hel- 
lenic system ; and to this he devoted 
himself with the more energy, in pro- 
portion to his disquiet, perhaps with the 
more zeal, for that the old faith seemed 
neglected. The real gods of his devo- 
tion were Earth, with her Titan brood, 
of whose time-honoured inheritance the 
Olympic dynasty had possession but 
questionably and precariously — the 
Fates — the Furies — and above all, the 
dread power of Destiny." This pas- 
sage avoids the offensive harshness of 
Welcker's language ; and the sentences 
we have given in italics seem to bring the 
writer's view, to a certain extent, into 
harmony with that unquestioned su- 
premacy of Jove, which we allege to be 
a characteristic of iEschylus and the 
Prometheus, as much as of the an- 
cient poetry of Homer and Hesiod. We 
much fear, however, that the represen- 



tation thus given of the relation of 
iEschylus to Zeus is only a hasty gene- 
ralization from the Prometheus, as it 
affects us in its present truncated shape. 
The very passage of the Agamemnon 
quoted by the writer proves the devout 
allegiance of the poet to Zeus as dis- 
tinctly, at least, as any expressions in 
the Prometheus prove his disaffection. 
As little can we see, in the juridical 
pleadings of the Eumenides, any con- 
certed irony against the received gods : 
we perceive only the necessary awk- 
wardness into which a dramatist falls, 
whose plot leads him to put into a legal 
and argumentative shape the thousand 
and one absurdities of a purely legen- 
dary faith. 

1 Prowett, Introduction, p. 8. So also 
Mr. Whiston, in Smith's Biographical 
Dictionary, art. ^Eschylus, " The re- 
ligious views and tenets of iEschylus, 
so far as they appear in his writings, 
were Homeric." 



94 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF jESCHYLUS. 

very solemn and devout opening chorus of the Aga- 
memnon. 1 

In vain, therefore, as it should seem, is every argu- 
ment tried, and every hypothesis ventured, to reconcile 
the commonly received notion of the iEschylean Prome- 
theus, either with the religious opinions of Greece gene- 
rally, or with the theological views of the poet. Turn 
where we will in search of a satisfactory explanation, we 
are baffled. It therefore remains only that we carefully 
review our facts, that we recur to our original impression, 
and see whether there may not be good reason to question 
its accuracy. Our sympathies, as we read the piece, are 
confessedly altogether with Prometheus, while our unmi- 
tigated hatred is centred on Jove. But is it absolutely 
necessary, is it in any view imperative, that we should 
suppose the same representation to have made the same 
impression on the minds of the Athenians ? For were it 
possible to imagine, that from difference of position and 
susceptibility, the sympathies of the Athenians were dif- 
ferent from ours, perhaps ran altogether in the opposite 
direction, then there is an end of the question ; literature 
and religion being no longer at war, neither learning nor 
ingenuity are necessary to reconcile them. 

Now, on this head, it is most obvious to remark, that of 
all the component parts of a foreign and distant literature, 
that which concerns religion is the most difficult for the 
stranger student to realize. The squabbles of the market- 
place, and the wranglings of the forum, being pretty much 
the same in an ancient or a u modern Athens," will be 
easily understood by a reader of any time and place ; but 

1 On the opening words of the in- nle!" (p. 104). A case must be very 

vocation to Jove in that chorus — Zevs hopeless that requires such perverse 

Bans •nor' iariv — Welcker remarks, — ingenuity as this. 
" Sicker schrieb er dies nicht ohne Iro- 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF ^ESCHYLUS. 95 

between Christianity and heathenism the gulf is so wide, 
that a perfect recognition of the ancient by the modern 
can be achieved only in the case of the studious few, and 
that not without much labour, and a peculiar emotional 
sensibility. We are bound, therefore, to approach pro- 
blems of this kind with a certain cautiousness and self- 
suspicion, quite the reverse of the indifierent carelessness 
by which, in respect of them, our judgment is generally 
possessed. In particular, we are bound not merely to 
dispossess ourselves of all modern notions which have 
grown with our growth, but to possess ourselves of 
all corresponding ancient notions which grew with the 
growth of the Athenians ; we must put a force upon our 
own convictions, and conjure up in our souls a factitious 
reverence for names that were once powers and virtues 
and mighty agencies in the moral world. We must 
approach the reading of the Prometheus Bound, as the 
pious Athenian came to witness its representation, with 
a mind prepossessed, and that strongly, not in favour of 
Prometheus, but in favour of Zeus. This prepossession 
alone will go far to change the whole aspect of the case ; 
but we can happily go much further : we are in a condition 
to come to the reading of the Prometheus with the same 
detailed knowledge of the legend, and the same received 
interpretation of it, that possessed the mind of the ancient 
Athenian. The potters and the torch-runners of the Cera- 
micus, in all likelihood, knew no more of it than we do. 
We possess, in fact, the Greek Bible on the subject ; — so 
far, at least, as the floating fanciful religion of the Greeks 
could be said to have a Bible, — we possess Hesiod. 

What then does the pious old Ascrsean say on the 
subject? This is the preparatory question from which 
every thorough investigation into the theology of the 



96 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF JESCHYLUS. 

iEschylean drama must start. The Athenian came thus 
prepared ; and to place ourselves in the same position, so 
must we : not with a portentous logical deduction, like 
Bellmann, who (p. 37) boasts that he will bring out the 
idea of the play, " solo scriptore duce," as if the writer 
himself ever dreamt of addressing blank minds, and did 
not rather calculate upon the preconceived ideas and ten- 
dencies of his audience, as on a main matter on which the 
effect of his artistical exhibition depended ! Well ; Hesiod 
tells the story, as we all know it in the facts, not once, 
but twice, with considerable breadth of detail, in the 
Theogony (507), and in the Works and Bays (48) ; but the 
tone in which he tells it, and the moral with which he 
couples it, are less known, and for the most part not at 
all present to the mind of the general, or even the learned 
reader ; so completely with his bold and daring grandeur 
has the more modern dramatist thrown the simple-hearted 
theologer into the shade. But this tone and this moral 
are the very soul of the legend : they represent the reli- 
gious mind of Greece on the subject ; or, if they do not, 
nothing else does ; and it is from this source only that we 
Gan learn, at the present day, the feelings with which an 
Athenian audience, in the days of the Persian war, came 
to witness a theatrical exhibition, of which the fire-filching 
demigod was the hero. Let any man, therefore, read the 
Theogony from the beginning to the conclusion of the 
Promethean Episode, and say how he is affected by the 
representation there given. It is plain the pious old 
genealogist — and this is the main point — approves no 
more of the conduct of the son of Iapetus than of the host 
of other Titans : these strove by violence against Zeus, he 
by cunning ; but they were both rebels against him whom 
the Greeks worshipped as both omnipotent and omniscient 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF jESCHYLUS. 97 

as not merely the highest physical force, but the supreme 
moral power in the system of the world; 1 and in the 
character of rebels they were both punished. Which was 
the greater guilt, whether to oppose Zeus by force or by 
fraud, the bard does not inquire ; but if there be degrees 
in wickedness of this kind, the sinner who endeavours to 
deceive the all-knowing one will scarcely seem less guilty 
than he who vaunts himself to subdue the all-powerful. 
Such certainly was the notion of Hesiod, who concludes 
both hi3 narratives with the distinct moral, — 

12? ovk eart Alo<$ fcXeyfrai voov ovSe irape\6elv — 

(Tkeog. 613; Op. 92) 

a moral, be it observed, no less characteristically Christian 
than Heathen, and in which the true Christian signifi- 
cance of the Prometheus indicated by Lasaulx lies ; though 
indeed the distinct enunciation of this moral was not at 
all necessary, as the whole tone and connexion of the 
narrative in both works prove the same thing. Wherein, 
then, according to the old poet, does the guilt of Prome- 
theus consist ? Plainly, in the impious attempt to deceive 
and to defraud the supreme god, with an obstinate per- 
versity of cunning, on two several occasions ; first, in 
regard to sacrificial rites — which circumstance, by the 
way, iEschylus has thought fit to drop — and then in the 
great matter of using celestial fire for terrestrial purposes. 
No doubt the result of both these attempts is in favour of 
man ; the benevolent end seems to sanctify the unworthy 
means ; but the piety of the poet is nowise affected by this 
circumstance. He only knows that Jove is supreme ; and 

1 We do not, of course, mean to say £-evio$, etc., altogether preclude the idea 

that the Homeric idea of Jove was of looking on him as merely an imper- 

precisely that of a Christian's idea of sonation of supreme power in the phy- 

God ; but the familiar epithets of 6'pxio?, sical world. 



98 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF JSSCHYLUS. 

that every boon, however gracious, conferred without his 
consent and against his will, cannot be without guilt on 
the part of the giver, and danger on the part of the 
receiver. That Prometheus is guilty forms in fact the 
foundation of the whole legend, according to Hesiod. 1 
This is so manifest, that even among those modern com- 
mentators who consider Jove as tyrannical in his conduct, 
there are many who equally admit the guilt of Prome- 
theus. That the Athenians, at least, must have started 
with this as an undeniable axiom seems as certain as that 
a modern Christian reads the third chapter of Genesis 
with the undoubting faith that Adam and Eve, and the 
serpent, sinned grievously in what they did. " Persuasum 
erat auditoribus reum luere justam poenam" says Toepel- 
mann (p. 37). So even Herder admits the guilt of Pro- 
metheus partially, though he represents Jove as having 
been much more blameful, putting forth Themis, strangely 
enough (one of Jove's wives !), or eternal justice, to adju- 
dicate betwixt them. So Welcker also ; 2 only not Byron 
and Bellmann, Shelley, and Schtitz, and Goethe. What, 
then, let us inquire further, the Athenian mind being thus 
fore-armed, with Hesiodic views, was the moral effect 
of the iEschylean Prometheus on the spectators ? The 
answer to this question depends on the answer to another 
one, Is the iEschylean Prometheus the same as the Pro- 
metheus of Hesiod — morally, we mean, of course — or is he 
different ? He is the same in every respect substantially ; 
only JEschylus brings his better qualities, his fortitude and 

1 So, in a much later age, true to the the one great deceit by which the 
moral of the old legend, Horace — mind endeavours to lay violent hold of 

" Audax omnia perpeti what is divine (das Gottliche an sich zu 

Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas ; reissen"), p. 73, and a great deal more 

Audax Iapeti genus ^ ^ game effect {n ^ chapter _^ &e ,. 

Ignem fraude mala gentibus nitulit. ,. _ , , _. ,. „ 

Od. i. 3. 25. die Bedeutung des Ganzen — well worthy 

2 " The proper crime of Prometheus, of study. 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF jESCHYLUS. 99 

self-sustainment, into the foreground, while a shade is 
cast over his cunning and his crime. These bad qualities, 
however, are hi nowise withheld. . He is called the thief 
of fire, and charged again and again, by mouths com- 
manding respect, with rashness and pride ; with audacity 
and obstinacy, and vPpis in every shape. The modern 
reader, indeed, may not choose to give any weight to this 
judgment ; but with the ancient spectator it was at once 
the ground and the body of all orthodoxy. iEschylus 
therefore does not deny the moral of Hesiod ; and if he 
does not do it, either expressly or by implication, most 
assuredly his audience would not do it for him. Every 
believer in a popular theology — no matter whether wise 
or absurd — is slow to have his faith shaken. A direct 
attack must be made before he will be roused ; then indeed 
his vengeance is terrible. 

But the chorus, the impartial spectator, the spokes- 
man of all morality, and the preacher of all propriety in 
the Greek drama, does he — or in this case rather, does 
she — not sympathize with the suffering Titan, and express 
her detestation of the tyranny of Jove ? One passage 
there certainly is in this view very strong ; it is as fol- 
lows. We quote the whole, for it is short : — 

CHORUS. 
Xevaaco npofitjOev' (j)oj3epa B efioiatp ocraots, 
o/XL^Xa irpoarj^e 77X77^77? 
ScLKpvayv, gov Se/Jias etaiBovcra 
ireTpcus TTpoaavcLLvopbevov 
ralcrB aBa^avToBeroiaL Xu/iat?* 
veoi yap oiaKovojxoi Kparova OXv/mttov 
veoxjjiols Be Br) vo/jlol<; Zevs aOercos Kparvvet 
tcl irpiv Be TreXcopca vvv ala-rol. — W. 144-51. 

These are certainly distinct words — AOETI2Z ; and if 



100 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF jESCHYLUS. 

there were no other statement from the same quarter to a 
different effect in the same play, the question might be 
considered as triumphantly settled in favour of the popular 
view. A consistent verdict of this kind from an ancient 
chorus could not have brooked contradiction from any 
modern critic. But the persons of the chorus in the Prome- 
theus are scarcely to be looked upon as judges. No busy 
actors are they indeed, and parties directly interested, 
like the fell-snorting, black-banded sisterhood in the 
Eumenides ; but they are simple ocean-maids, amiable, 
kindly, and tender-hearted, and, like all proper women, 
eager for nothing so much as to sympathize always with 
all affliction, ever pleading for mercy, without inquiring 
curiously into the claims of justice. They therefore con- 
fine their office, in the present drama, almost altogether 
to the expression of sympathy with the sufferer, and that, 
as was necessary in noble characters, not by word only, 
but by deed. They pretend, however, to no judgment in 
so gigantic a strife ; or, if they judge at all, express an 
opinion on the side of Zeus ; for the strong words above 
quoted are more than negatived by the decided language 
of an opposite tendency that occurs as the action of the 
play advances. 

But it may still be argued, if the chorus gives no 
opinion in the matter, does not iEschylus himself do so ? 
Has he not drawn the whole portraiture, determined every 
attitude, thrown every light with the view, and to the 
effect, of engaging the whole stream of our sympathies in 
favour of the sufferer ? Assuredly he has drawn a strong 
picture of manly fortitude, and in doing so, unquestion- 
ably he wished to excite sympathy in behalf of the 
sufferer ; but the conclusion, therefore, is not legitimate, 
which Schiitz and Bellmann have drawn, that he wished 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF AESCHYLUS. 101 

to exhibit Prometheus as in all respects a moral model, in 
the fashion somewhat of the stoical wise man. There are 
great and manly virtues in Macbeth and Richard, which 
our greater ^Eschylus meant that we should admire, with- 
out prejudice to our condemnation of the main character 
of these persons. So, also, Milton has tricked out the 
devil with more of the trappings of heroism than is agree- 
able to many. Goethe's Mephistopheles, it has been 
thought, is a much more proper devil ; a fiend whom you 
can hate thoroughly, without being tempted to admire. 
In the same way, we may feel that the crafty fraudulent 
Prometheus of the theogony is a much more fit subject 
for the pillory of the Caucasus than the 

" High-minded sou of right-decreeing Themis," 

whom the father of Greek tragedy has elevated to the 
culminating point of the sublime in endurance. But 
iEschylus and Milton alike, in this modification of the 
character of their heroes, followed their lofty genius, not 
the popular conception. Wise in doing so ; and safe from 
misinterpretation of their main scope, by the strength 
of general prepossession, and the stability of the popular 
faith. 

One most important point in the Athenian conception 
of the Promethean myth still remains to be noticed. 
The Greeks learned more from Hesiod than the unques- 
tionable guilt of Prometheus, and the justice of his 
punishment. They learned, at the same time, the pallia- 
tion of that guilt, and the limit of that castigation. He 
had opposed the will of the supreme ; therein his guilt 
was great ; but his main object was not essentially base 
or selfish ; his theft was from the gods, but for the benefit 
of man : fire, the " mother of arts," was a gift that the 



102 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF jESCHYLUS. 

giver of all good things — the Scorrjpe? edov, could not 
mean finally to withhold from creatures who so much 
required it ; Prometheus, therefore, sinned in the form 
rather than in the drift and result of his offending ; and 
for him, according to all reasonable ideas of a divine pro- 
cedure, mercy was reserved. The old myth accordingly 
taught that Prometheus, after suffering unexampled woes, 
was finally to be liberated, and that even by the agency of 
the great Hellenic liberator, Hercules. This the Athenian 
audience distinctly knew from Hesiod (Theog. 526) ; but 
it is announced also with no less distinctness in our drama 
(v. 772) ; and the effect of this annunciation must neces- 
sarily have been to remove from their minds any appear- 
ance of harshness and severity on the part of Zeus, which 
the terrible nature of the punishment seemed to wear. 
The degree of punishment, no doubt, in theological legends 
of this kind, is popularly estimated, not by any curious 
admeasurement of the magnitude of the crime or the 
capacity of the sinner, but by the transcendental nature 
of the being against whom the offence is committed. 
Still the offence of Prometheus was one which, in the 
most severe view, could scarcely seem worthy of never- 
ending torture. The 

" Sedet seternumque sedebit infelix Theseus" 

of Virgil applies to a crime of much more flagrant atro- 
city. Final pardon, therefore, the Athenian spectator 
looked for confidently ; as ages rolled on, the period would 
certainly come when it would be consistent with the 
sovereignty of the supreme god to temper his stern justice 
with mercy ; when a reconciliation between the offending 
demigod, having expiated sin by suffering, and the justly 
offended deity, would take place. The previous know- 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF JESCHYLUS. 103 

ledge of this final satisfactory settlement of the great con- 
troversy was sufficient to quiet the conscience of a pious 
Athenian, if at any time the whetted words of the tor- 
tured Titan seemed to cast reproaches in the ear of Zeus, 
more bitter than might be grateful to pious ears to hear. 
The poet when he represented, and the people when they 
beheld, painted with glaring colours individual aspects of 
the portentous myth, only the more decidedly that their 
heart rested with perfect faith in the acknowledged righte- 
ousness of the anticipated catastrophe. 

But there is more than this, — the spectators of the 
Prometheus Bound not only knew what the catastrophe 
should be, but there is every reason to believe that they 
actually saw it. That iEschylus wrote three, and per- 
haps four plays on this significant myth has long been a 
patent and well-known fact to scholars. That he wrote 
a Prometheus Unbound is the most certain tradition of 
all ; for we actually have a translation from it in a 
work so commonly read as the Tusculan Questions of 
Cicero (it. 9). Of this fact, not a single scholar, pro- 
bably, who has criticised the Prometheus for the last three 
hundred years, has been ignorant ; but, in recognising the 
bearing of so important a fact on the interpretation of the 
now existing play, many writers, even in the most recent 
times, have been strangely deficient. If the Bound Pro- 
metheus is only introductory to an Unbound Prometheus, 
which, in the actual representation, immediately followed, 
as itself was introduced by a fire-bringing Prometheus, it 
is manifest that we are not. at present in a condition to 
judge of the total effect of the trilogy, any more than 
from one act of a modern play the spectator can always 
divine — for sometimes certainly he may divine — the whole. 
Our modern critics, however, even those who mav the 



104 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF jESCHYLUS. 

least suspect it, have proceeded too generally on the 
assumption that the present play contains within itself 
the elements of a just judgment as to its tendency. So 
prepossessed with this very natural notion does Hermann, 
for instance, seem to be, that he expends not a little forced 
ingenuity of labour in endeavouring to disprove against 
Welcker the natural continuity of the play which follows 
with that which precedes. There is no direct testimony, 
indeed, from the ancients, either that the Prometheus 
Unbound was in actual representation given directly after 
the play which we now possess, or that the npofirjdev^ 
7rvp(f>opo? immediately preceded it. Hermann also insists 
that this first part of the assumed trilogy was identical 
with the npo/jL7}0evs irvpicaevs, mentioned by Pollux, 1 and 
which we know from the argument of " the Persians" to 
have been a satiric drama, the last in the tetralogy there 
given. But leaving this point undecided — as most likely 
it never can be decided — the hypothesis, that the Upoy^Qem 
\vofievos, which forms so natural a sequel to the Bea/jbcorTj^, 
was disjoined from it in the actual exhibition, is so forced 
and gratuitous, that not even the name of Hermann will 
induce the sound-minded student to give it a serious con- 
sideration. In criticism as in morals, probability, not 
possibility, must be our guide. The conclusion that the 
\vofievos was exhibited immediately after the Sea^rr)^, is 
not only the most obvious and natural in the case, but 
it is a supposition which the admitted theological diffi- 
culties of the introductory play imperatively demand. 
The catastrophe thus evolved, irrespective altogether of 
what we know from Hesiod, were sufficient of itself to 
remove every objection arising from the apparent impiety 
of the piece ; the supposition of a continuous trilogy, or, 

1 ix. 156 ; x. 64. 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF AESCHYLUS. 105 

at least, of a second play following the present, is, in 
fact, a theory which satisfactorily explains all the pheno- 
mena ; while the opposite theory explains nothing, being 
useful only, so far as a plain man may see, to prop the 
crumbling consistency of ancient error, and to enable the 
old school of philologists to be gathered to their fathers 
with the comfortable assurance that they have not been 
vanquished by the new. 1 

As to the precise manner in which the reconciliation 
between Jove and his stout-hearted adversary was brought 
about by the poet in the last piece of the trilogy, there 
exist materials large enough to justify a few probable 
conjectures, but too scanty to admit of any approach to 
certainty. 2 The most satisfactory attempt to reconstruct 
the lost framework of iEschylus, the German scholar will 
find in Schoemann s very valuable work ; an author with 
whose views on almost every point of the Promethean 
question we are disposed to coincide ; and to whom the 
present writer owes it more directly, that his own long- 
revolved imaginations on this subject have at length 
organized themselves into the present tangible shape. 

1 " If there ever was a case in which a just poetic discernment he perceived 
it was justifiable to assume positively the necessity of the lost play to evolve 
the existence of a connected trilogy it is the catastrophe of the present piece, 
this case of the Prometheus." — Quart and how clearly he perceived that the 
Review, vol. lxx. p. 353. N.B. — I had poet must have brought about the 
not read this when I wrote the text. catastrophe by a reconciliation of the 
The coincidence of independent opinion contending parties. Adhering, how- 
has of course a certain value. ever, strictly to the idea that Zeus is 

2 Those who have read Shelley's Pro- to be looked on only "as the oppressor 
metheus need not be told that no of mankind," it is no wonder he could 
attempt is there made to reconstruct find in the iEschylean sequel no theme 
the lost play of iEschylus. From any worthy of his genius. The following is 
attempt of this kind the poet's instinc- from the Preface :— " The Prometheus 
tive good taste, as well as his bold and Unbound of iEschylus supposed the re- 
original genius, were sufficient to deter conciliation of Jupiter with his victim, 
him. It is of importance to us, how- as the price of the disclosure of the 
ever, to remark specially, with what danger threatened to his empire by the 



106 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF ^ESCHYLUS. 



Before concluding these remarks, it will be necessary 
to advert for a moment to a view of the moral connexion 
of the Bound and the Unbound Prometheus, first pro- 
posed by Dissen in a letter to Welcker (Trilog. p. 92), 
and brought forward again by Dr. Julius Caesar in oppo- 
sition to the views of Schoemann. Professor Schoemann 
does not assume any more than ourselves that it is neces- 
sary, in the final reconciliation of the contending parties, 
to suppose any confession of error or change of character 
on the part of Jove. We both suppose with Hesiod that 
the punishment suffered by Prometheus was merited; 
and with the Greeks generally that the moral sovereignty 
of Zeus is not to be questioned ; nor the degree of pun- 
ishment which he chooses to inflict on the offender a 
matter about which the curious casuistry of human wit can 
legitimately be exercised. But there are scholars who, 
agreeing with us in the point of the guilt of Prometheus, 
are not able to shake themselves free from the impression 
of gross tyranny which is left upon the modern reader by 
the perusal of the present truncated work. These per- 

con summation of his marriage with fable, which is so powerfully sustained 
Thetis. Thetis, according to this view by the sufferings and endurance of Pro- 
of the subject, was given in marriage metheus, would be annihilated, if we 
to Peleus; and Prometheus, by the per- could conceive of him as unsaying his 
mission of Jupiter, delivered from his high language, and quailing before his 
captivity by Hercules. Had I framed successful and perfidious adversary, 
my story on this model, I should have The only imaginary being resembling 
done no more than have attempted to in any degree Prometheus is Satan ; 
restore the lost drama of ^Eschylus ; — and Prometheus is, in my judgment, a 
an ambition which, if my preference to more poetical character than Satan, be- 
the mode of treating the subject had cause, in addition to courage, and ma- 
incited me to cherish, the recollection jesty, and firm and patient opposition 
of the high comparison such an attempt to omnipotent force, he is susceptible of 
would challenge might well abate. But, being described as exempt from the 
in truth, I was averse from a cata- taints of ambition, envy, revenge, and 
strophe so feeble as that of reconciling a desire for personal aggrandizement, 
the champion with the oppressor of which, in the hero of Paradise Lost, 
mankind. The moral interest of the interfere with the interest." 






ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF ^ESCHYLUS. 107 

sons, therefore, have been driven to the invention of a 
sort of middle hypothesis between the two views con- 
trasted in this paper ; a hypothesis conceived purposely 
so as to admit on the one hand the penitent submission 
of Prometheus, and on the other the progressive ameliora- 
tion and final perfectionation of Jove. The following are 
the words of Dissen : — 

" What has always offended me most in the Prometheus is the 
total giving up of the character of Jove, which seems to be the effect 
of the poet's representation ; and I have never been able to convince 
myself that it was the intention of .ZEschylus to exalt the world of 
Titans without qualification, and to depreciate the presently existing 
gods. The first idea that occurred to me, to remove this difficulty, was, 
that the principal actors in the Promethean myth are not heroes, with 
gods introduced only as a sort of machinery ; but here we have a contest 
of gods against gods ; and a god is freely allowed to bring accusations 
against Jove, such as would have constituted blasphemy in a mortal. 
But this explanation is not satisfactory. We have two questions to 
answer. Can the controversy between Jove, a tyrant of the world, and 
his accusers, be looked on as a matter of personal feeling between the 
parties concerned ; or is it meant that we, the spectators, and in our 
person the Greek religion, henceforth are to look upon Jove under the 
same aspect of tyranny in which he appears to the principal actor in 
the play 1 The one supposition is insufficient ; for Jove is made to do 
that which actually is tyrannical, so manifestly that the spectator cannot 
look upon it as a collision arising out of personal animosity. The other 
supposition I cannot prevail upon myself, without more ado, to adopt. 
I have accordingly been forced to another view of the subject, which is 
this, — I look upon the whole as a Titanomachy, as the last great struggle 
of that mighty time; as, indeed, we find that the myth of Prome- 
theus, according to the theogonic chronology, follows immediately after 
the battle of the Titans, and forms in fact their conclusion. In such 
an age — in the early epoch of mundane development — when the ele- 
ments of the future system of the world were not yet in equilibrium, 
violence and exaggeration on both sides are quite natural ; and as 
Prometheus, on his part, was not free from blame, so Jove also erred 
in the exercise of a tyrannical authority. I therefore look upon the 
tyrannical character of Zeus, exhibited in the Bound Prometheus, as 
only a transition state of things which is to vanish with the final estab- 



108 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF ^JSCHYLUS. 

lishment of the new order of things, to be represented in the third piece. 
In this epoch, if the system of the world is still felt as tyrannical, it 
can only be so in the feeling of an individual ; in a higher view of the 
whole, the tyranny disappears ; and in this regard I imagine ^Eschylus 
could never have meant to represent the government of Jove as a per- 
manent tyranny — a representation which would have been at war both 
with the Greek tragedy and with the Grecian world. Prometheus, in 
the exercise of an excessive benevolence, has given to men that which 
belongs to the gods ; and in as much as he has thereby planted man on 
a more commanding platform, as against the gods, Jove, jealous of his 
power, persecutes him, and will not tolerate the higher elevation of man 
till such time as he — so I view the relation — being reconciled to Pro- 
metheus, is at the same time reconciled to the new order of the world, 
and is brought to the insight that it is better for him to reign over 
ennobled men, than over creatures little better than the brutes. For 
Jove also must have come forth from that terrible Titanic struggle, not 
in his original character, but with a higher consciousness. Force and 
forcible rule were essential elements of the Titanic period, in which one 
celestial power after another dethroned its predecessor; in perfect 
keeping with which general character it is, that the Jove of that epoch 
is suspicious, haughty, despotical, etc., even because he forms the tran- 
sition between the old and the new, till, with the conclusion of the 
Titanic struggles, a higher phasis appears. When I contemplate the 
whole trilogy in this light, it appears to me a profoundly-conceived 
glorification of the new order of the world, as having put an end to the 
licentious exaggerations of the preceding period. Sluggish insensibility 
(Stumpfheit); oppression and tyranny, have come to an end : the free 
development of the mind in the unfolding of the arts commences ; 
everything marches to meet a higher destiny. And this feeling, I may 
add, is precisely that which would naturally be predominant in the 
poet's mind at the time when he wrote. The period immediately follow- 
ing the Persian wars was accompanied with an expansive movement in 
the Greek mind, which corresponds happily with the sublime idea of 
mundane development, as I imagine it represented in the trilogy." 

The objection to this theory, according to our view, 
is, that if we have proved anything by the preceding 
remarks, it is altogether unnecessary, being invented, 
according to the declaration of the author, to obviate a 
difficulty which never existed in the Athenian mind. The 



ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF JESCHYLUS. 109 

Athenians, we have distinctly stated — for this is the point 
on which the whole discussion hinges — did not, and could 
not, look upon the conduct of Jove as tyrannical in the 
matter. The general impression of the tyrannical char- 
acter of Jove is the mere offspring of modern partial 
conceptions, formed in the total disregard both of Hesiod 
and of the Trilogy. Independent of this objection, how- 
ever, the hypothesis is faulty, because it is too fine-spun 
and metaphysical ; abstract and speculative, rather than 
practical and popular. In modern times a theologian of no 
common notoriety has written a work on " the develop- 
ment of Christian doctrine ;" and no doubt all religious 
doctrines and ideas, Christian as well as heathen, are sub- 
ject to what may be called a development ; that is, they 
are understood differently, more narrowly or more largely, 
more grossly or more spiritually, according to the capacity 
of the minds into which they are received ; but a formal 
exposition of such a development of intellectual and moral 
phases in a faith generally received would seem to fall 
within the province of the theologian and the philosopher 
rather than that of the poet. The dramatist, certainly, of 
all men who come in contact with a popular religion, is the 
least hopeful person to make a physiological unfolding of 
its growth and a public demonstration of its anatomy. 
He receives it as a thing given, and makes the best of it. 
It is a general moral element which all his fantastic per- 
sonages must breathe ; not a separate theme for himself 
to handle. The Greek religion, no doubt, so purely ima- 
ginative and emotional, afforded a philosophical dramatist 
a wide field for inoculating mythical personages with 
abstract notions, such as a definite and closely-reasoned 
creed would have barred ; but it is going too far to main- 
tain that the writer of a publicly exhibited sacred opera 



110 ON THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF MSCHYLUS. 

— standing somewhat in the position of Metastasio at 
Vienna — should have presumed to set before a pious 
audience the process of growth of their supreme god, and 
to show them, step by step, how Zeus the cruel, in the 
course of years and by power of destiny, became Zeus the 
just, somehow as a modern physiologist will expound 
leisurely how a tadpole, which is substantially a finny fish, 
can in the course of days, by the benign influence of light, 
become a footed frog. All this forced and unnatural 
theorizing is avoided by the simple supposition that the 
Athenian audience believed in Homer and Hesiod ; and 
that the fortitude and constancy of the sufferer, which in 
the more popular modern view colours the whole of the 
iEschylean drama, was in fact but a strong dramatic point 
in the mind both of the ancient dramatist and his audi- 
ence ; while the religious soul that inspired the complete 
legend was the solemn conviction of the Greek, as it is 
also of the Christian mind, 1 that whether in man or in 
demi-god — the representative of man, every function is 
to be exercised, every energy put forth blissfully, only 
under subjection to the will of the Supreme ; 

ottl fia\ ov Stjvclios b? aOavdroicn ixayjf}Tai. 



1 Besides Lasaulx and Schoernann, 
Volcker also, in his Mythologie des Iape- 
tischen Geschkchts (Gene v. 1824), recog- 
nises in the Promethean myth, as given 
by Hesiod in the Works and Days, a 
heathen account of the Fall of Man. We 



shall best forestall contradiction by say- 
ing, that the sin of Adam in Genesis iii., 
and the sin of Prometheus in Hesiod 
and iEschylus, however they may differ 
in form and in effect, are in conception 
and principle substantially the same. 



ON THE PHILOLOGICAL GENIUS AND 

CHARACTER OF THE NEO-HELLENIC DIALECT 

OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE. 

Proposition i. — All spoken language is a growth, sub- 
ject, like the creature who uses it, to a constant course 
of mutation ; it is a living organism, developed according 
to certain laws, partly inherent, partly superinduced; 
and, though it is liable to decay, disintegration, and 
death, this disintegration, except in special cases of exter- 
mination, becomes the soil of a new growth, and this death 
the cradle of a new life. The historical action of this 
process of mutation is to produce either new varieties or 
dialects of one language, or new species of one family of 
languages. 

Proposition ii. — Though no living language is cap- 
able of an absolute stoppage, and, according to the Heracli- 
tan doctrine of iravra pec, must either go on growing or 
be exterminated, yet there are certain influences at work 
in the constitution of human society that may retard the 
process of change to an indefinite period, creating a more 
or less fixed type, from which deviations are few and far 
between. These influences are of two kinds, internal and 
external, or as we may say, intellectual and political : in- 
tellectual, proceeding from the predominant and authori- 



112 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

tative force of great creative intellects, such as Homer 
and Dante ; political, proceeding from the unifying effect 
of a stable form of government, and a permanent type 
of social order. In other words, the changes that natur- 
ally go on in language, as in everything vital, will be 
impeded and retarded by the traditions of the past so 
long as these retain a firm hold on the national habit of 
thought and expression. And the duration of the type 
of any language will be in the direct ratio of the force 
of the controlling influences, internal and external. 

Proposition hi. — In the case of the Greek language, 
while the internal conservative influences were peculiarly 
strong, the external were loose and variable. An abso- 
lute political cohesion in the Roman style the Greeks 
never had. Variety by expansion, and dispersion, and 
consolidation round a number of special social nuclei, was 
during their most brilliant period the law of their exter- 
nal growth ; but during this period, the influence, first of 
an Ionic minstrelsy in Asia Minor, and then of an Attic 
culture in south-eastern Europe, was so strong that it 
controlled, in a very imperial fashion the separative and 
particularizing forces of independent political centres ; 
and afterwards, when a strong central government was 
established, and continued for many centuries at Con- 
stantinople, this unifying influence, acting with the 
double power of Church and State, though disturbed 
at first by the intrusion of a strong Roman vein, com- 
bined, with an unexampled weight of intellectual and 
moral tradition, to retard and impede, or practically to 
ignore, the changes which, by a process of nature, were 
naturally going on in the Greek language, in an increas- 
ing ratio, from the overthrow of the political and intel- 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 113 

lectual supremacy of Athens by the Macedonians, to the 
taking of Constantinople by the Turks, and from that 
time by natural propagation, though with diminished 
force, up to the present hour. 

Proposition iv. — These retarding forces, however, 
being in a manner artificial, and acting contrary to the 
natural law of variation by growth, are necessarily limited 
in their operation, and can, of course, act only where they 
are felt ; that is to say, in those classes of society which 
are " kept constantly under the moulding and controlling 
influence of the inherited traditions of the past, or, in 
common language, in the well-educated classes of the 
community. The uneducated classes, on the contrary, 
by whom the controlling power of this traditional culture 
is not felt, or felt only indirectly and with greatly dimin- 
ished force, go on, partly breaking down old forms of 
speech, partly sending forth new shoots, so as to form 
what becomes a distinctly marked dialect of their own ; 
and in this way the language of a whole people in a 
state of imperfect and inadequate culture may be pro- 
pagated in two distinct parallel lines, like an upper and 
a lower stratum in geology, without coalescing into any 
common type. 

Proposition v. — This bistratified condition of a 
spoken language is exactly what we find realized in the 
capital of the Byzantine Empire at the time of the 
Crusades. For here, while a remarkably strong and 
unbroken chain of literary and ecclesiastical tradition had 
preserved, with very trivial alterations, the Catholic dia- 
lect of the Greek tongue, of which Attic is the most 
finished type, the gradual disintegration of an ill-governed 



114 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

empire had combined with various influences, topogra- 
phical and commercial, social and political, to shake 
the language of the great mass of the illiterate masses 
loose from all precedent, and to favour the growth of a 
corrupt and hybrid dialect, which, with the aid of favour- 
able circumstances, might in due season shape itself, like 
the barbarous Latin of the middle ages, into a new lan- 
guage. Of this we have happily the most distinct and 
clear evidence in the two short poems of the monk 
Theodore Ptochoprodromus, written in the popular dia- 
lect, and addressed to the Emperor Manuel, who came 
to the throne in the year 1143. These poems are 
composed, not only, like the Annals of Constantine 
Manasses, who wrote about the same period, with a 
total disregard of the old classical rhythmical laws, but 
with a phraseology, and in a style so corrupt and so 
hybrid, that, even after the lights thrown on the work 
by Du Cange, Koraes, and other scholars, not a few pas- 
sages still remain obscure, and would be much more so, 
were it not that the Latin, which forms one of the chief 
corrupting elements, is a language with which the readers 
of Byzantine Greek are generally familiar. 

Proposition vi. — We must not suppose, however, 
from the fact of Theodore, or any other stray writer of 
the Byzantine period, having taken it into his head to 
write a book or two of verses in the corrupt popular 
dialect, that this dialect had at that time asserted for 
itself a place, and received a certain recognition in the 
world of books. Quite the contrary. In those dreary 
days, there arose no popular genius to stamp the popular 
dialect with a certain character of limited classicality ; 
but even had the Byzantines of those times had strength 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 115 

to produce a Burns, the traditional Greek of the court, 
the Church, and all educated intellects, was too strong to 
allow a mere lyrical variety, fostered in the hotbed of 
barbarism and corruption, to claim for itself more than a 
very little corner in a very large vineyard. The conse- 
quence was, that while the lower stratum of the spoken 
language was ripening from day to day into the well- 
marked form of a new dialect, or even a new language, 
it does not appear to have advanced a single step out of 
its ignored position as a literary organ, from the time of 
Theodore down to the taking of Constantinople by the 
Turks in 1453. Byzantine Greek was classical Greek 
from beginning to end, with only such insignificant 
changes as altered circumstances, combined with the law 
of its original genius, naturally produced. 

Proposition vii. — By the fall of the last Palseologus, 
the bond of unity which held the motley provinces of the 
Byzantine Empire together was broken ; one of the two 
strong external links that connected the degraded pre- 
sent with the glorious past was snapped ; and with the 
ruin of the Greek Empire, if the example of the Western 
Empire was to be a precedent, the death of the Greek 
language might naturally be expected to follow. But 
this result did not follow, and that principally from the 
action of three very powerful forces. The system of 
government introduced by the conquering Turks was not 
such as to render a fusion of the dominant and subject 
races possible ; here was the first element of repulsion ; 
in the domain of religion the repellent force on the side 
of the vanquished was even stronger ; and, if we add to 
these two influences the fact, that the accumulated intel- 
lectual forces of ages were all on the same side, we shall 



116 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

have no difficulty in perceiving how the taking of Byzan- 
tium by the Turks could have no such effect on the lan- 
guage of the Greeks, as the Lombard reign in Italy had 
on that of Rome, or the Norman invasion of England, in 
a much more decided way, on the speech of the Anglo- 
Saxons. Nor were matters much different in the south- 
western division of the Greek Empire, where the Vene- 
tians and other Franks had parcelled among themselves, 
in governments of greater or less permanency, the dis- 
membered inheritance of the Byzantine Csesars ; for the 
Greeks hated the Pope, who had on various occasions 
endeavoured to deprive them of their ecclesiastical liber- 
ties, scarcely with less intensity than they did the Turks, 
who had deprived them of all liberty ; and thus, in 
Frankish Greece also, the new forces introduced by ex- 
ternal conquest were not strong enough to effect the 
disintegration of the old linguistic inheritance, and the 
construction of a new language, or even the general recog- 
nition of a new dialect. 

Proposition viii. — But in spite of the strong and 
long-continued action of these retarding forces, nature 
would have her way ; a process of growth was slowly 
going on, which could not but issue in the formation 
either of an entirely new language, or of a well-marked 
species of an old language ; and under the continued 
action of the strong conservative forces indicated, the 
latter was the only result possible. The matter was 
brought to a practical decision, like so many other signi- 
ficant events in modern times, by the invention of print- 
ing and the diffusion of books. By means of these power- 
ful engines, the great storehouses of knowledge were no 
longer confined to the few, but gradually, as by a well- 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 117 

organized system of irrigation, the refreshing waters were 
brought down from the far hills, and dispersed through 
the plains ; and an essential part of such a machinery, of 
course, was the adoption of a language understood by the 
great mass of the people. If the Greek people were to 
be raised from the state in which they were kept by 
their political oppressors, the great preparatory instru- 
ment, till an opportunity for physical resistance should 
present itself, was popular education ; and popular educa- 
tion remained impossible so long as the learned wrote in 
a dialect artificially fed from reservoirs of dead tradition, 
not beating with the living pulses of the present. Under 
the influence of this patriotic necessity, books of various 
kinds, especially theological and ecclesiastic, had been 
issued from the Greek- press in a popular dialect, some- 
what similar to, but not nearly so corrupt as that used 
by Ptochoprodromus ; and works originally written in 
classical Greek, like the well-known Church History of 
Meletius, Bishop of Athens (ob. 1714), were translated 
into Romaic or modern Greek, just as we modernize 
Chaucer for the benefit of the million. These patriotic 
exertions for elevating the popular intellect were brought 
to a distinctly marked and generally recognised climax 
by the learned Adamantine Koraes (nat. 1748), a Smyr- 
niote Greek of great learning, philological talent, and 
ardent patriotism. This distinguished man, living under 
the inspiring influence of the great French Revolution, 
showed his countrymen, by precept and example, how it 
was possible to use the popular dialect according to its own 
now fully formed type, while preserving a well-balanced 
medium between the classical norm familiar to scholars 
and the gross barbarisms practised in the most remote 
districts, and by the rudest portion of the community. 



118 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

This wise and patriotic example, followed generally by a 
succession of accomplished men, has issued in planting 
modern Greek, or Neo-Hellenic, as it is now called in 
its perfect form as one of the recognised types of the 
great Greek language, on the same platform with the 
Ionic of Homer and the Doric of Theocritus. 

Proposition ix. — In attempting now to state scien- 
tifically the specific characteristic differences between the 
Neo-Hellenic dialect and what we are accustomed to call 
ancient Greek in all its extent, two important questions 
occur on the threshold. First, what do we mean by a 
dialect of a language, as distinguished from a new lan- 
guage formed from old materials ; and from what sources, 
as a standard, are we to make our inductions with regard 
to the real philological character of modern Greek ? The 
first question is one which, in theory, it may be very dif- 
ficult to answer ; but practically we may say, that when- 
ever the old materials of a language are so modified as 
that only a very few words remain in their original form, 
and that more accidentally than systematically, and when 
the obscurity arising from this source is increased by the 
admixture, in larger or smaller quantity, of foreign mate- 
rials, in this case, as in the case of Spanish and Italian, 
a new language has been created. 1 But whenever the 
changes induced on the old materials are comparatively 
slight and more sporadic than penetrating and pervading 

1 The lines in Italian — are altogether exceptive, as any one 

" In mare irato, in subita procella, may perceive by taking a stanza of 

Invoco te, nostra benigna stella," Ottava rima either in Tasso or Ariosto, 

often quoted (C. Lewis's " Romanic Lan- and counting how very few words in 

guages," 2d edit. p. 246) to prove the the eight lines have retained the unal- 

nearness of Italian to Latin, are no tered form of the Latin from which 

proof of the rule in that language, but they are derived. 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 119 

in their character, with only a very spare admixture of 
foreign materials, in this case we shall have only a new 
dialect — not a new language. The second question, as 
to what we may take as a fair standard of modern Greek, 
can be answered as a matter of fact only by hitting a judi- 
cious medium between the two extremes of gross cor- 
ruption, and that greater or less approximation to the 
standard of classical Greek, which the practice of some 
writers presents. Topographical and political causes con- 
spired to create different shades, grades, or types of modi- 
fication in the popular Greek dialect, which had more 
or less of a local character. The Byzantine Greek of 
Theodorus, the Albanian Greek of the Epirotic Klephts, 
and the Cretan Greek of Cornaro, who wrote the romance 
of Erotocritus, in the first half of the eighteenth cen- 
tury (first edition, Venice, 1737), are in some character- 
istic points, essentially diiferent. These constitute what, 
according to a botanical analogy, we might call local 
varieties of a common species ; and such varieties, as a 
rule, present a greater amount of deviation from the 
normal classical type than the floating mass of modern 
Greek common to all the existing race. On the other 
hand, since the time of Koraes, there has commenced a 
process of purification and restoration which tends to 
remove from the modern language some of those peculi- 
arities which are its most distinctive characteristics. In 
judging of the language as a whole, therefore, it is wise 
to take some work or book of an essentially popular char- 
acter written for general circulation in the last century, 
before the appearance of Koraes ; and I have used for 
this purpose a translation of the Arabian Nights into 
modern Greek, published at Venice by the well-known 
house of Glycys, in the year 1792. This choice, however, 



120 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

was dictated purely with a view to the conclusions of 
philological science ; for practical purposes, it is manifest 
that the best type of the Greek actually now spoken in 
Greece is contained in the Greek newspapers destined 
for general circulation. But neither can the philologer, 
though he refuses to accept local varieties, as part of the 
general norm of the dialect, overlook them as a fact. 
They are part either of the disintegration of the old type, 
or of the growth of the new, of which, in all its stages, he 
is bound to take cognizance ; the more that the phenomena 
of linguistic change, which are the most interesting to 
him, present themselves more strikingly in the more 
corrupt than in the less corrupt forms of the language. 

Proposition x. — In examining the processes of modi- 
fication through which the Neo-Hellenic language has 
attained its present type, the most obvious helps are, 
of course, the dictionaries of medieval Greek by Du 
Cange and Meursius, the learned commentaries of Koraes 
on Theodorus, the dictionary of Byzantine Greek by 
Sophocles, the dictionaries of modern Greek by Gerasi- 
mus, Bentotes, Kind, De Heque, Byzantius, and others, 
with the grammars from Thomas downwards to that of 
Sophocles and Mullach, which is the most complete. Be- 
sides the grammar, Mullach has edited the Batracho- 
myomachia of Demetrios Zenos, from which the student 
will reap benefit ; and with him should be taken the 
collection of mediaeval Greek chronicles and poems by 
Ellisen. Great zeal has been shown in the same depart- 
ment of Hellenic study by the French, of which the 
Collection de Monuments pour servir a VEtude de la 
langue Neo-Hellenique, by Monsieur le Grand, and the 
Paris association for the same object, of which Monsieur 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 



121 



d'Echthal is the moving genius, furnish ample evidence.* 
English scholars as a rule have paid little attention to the 
subject. Pashley, Tozer, and the late Viscount Strang- 
ford, with the late Professor Felton in America, were the 
only English names known to me in connexion with this 
branch of scholarship, till the publication last year of the 
highly original and ingenious work of M. Geldart ; in 
Scotland special praise is due to Dr. Clyde, and after him 
to Donaldson, t The late Cornewall Lewis, unfortunately, 
was altogether ignorant of this branch of philology : 
otherwise, as is evident from a note in his Essay on the 
Romanic Languages (p. 237, second edit.), he was pre- 
pared to have made an admirable use of it. 



Proposition xi. — When scholars talk of a type of 
language, such as the strange events of long centuries 



* 1. Koraes arcucra. — 2. Sophocles' 
Glossary of Byzantine Greek ; London, 
1860. — 3. Gerasiini Thesaurus quatuor 
Linguarum ; Venet. 1723. — 4. Kind, 
Handbuch der Neu-griechischen Spra- 
che; Leipzig, 1841. — 5. De Heque ; 
Paris, 1825. — 6. Ae£i/coi/ 'EXkrjvucov kol 
TclWlkov ; by Byzantius ; Athens, 1846. 
— 7. Xe^iKov TpiyXaxT&ov ; by Bentotes 
and Blante ; Venice, 1820. — 8. Nova 
Methodus Linguae Graecae vulgaris ; auc- 
tore Thoma ; Paris, 1709.— 9. Methode 
pour etudier la langue Grecque mo- 
derne, par David; Paris, 1821. — 10. 
Grammatica linguae Graecae recentioris ; 
Franz, Romae, 1837. — 11. Sophocles' Mo- 
dern Greek Grammar ; Hartford, 1842. 
— 12. Grammatik der Griechischen Vul- 
gar Sprache ; Mullach; Berlin, 1856. — 
13. Analekten der Mittel und Neu Grie- 
chischen Litteratur, Ellisen ; Leipzig, 
1855. — 14. Demetrii Zeni ; Paraphrasis 
Batrachomyomachia,Mullachius ; Bero- 
lini, 1837. — 15. Collection de monu- 
ments pour servir a l'etude de la langue 



Neo-Hellenique, par Emile le Grand; 
Paris, 1869. — 16. Mediaeval Greek 
texts ; the Philological Society's extra 
volume ; by W. Wagner ; London, 
1870. — 17. Association pour l'encou- 
ragement des Etudes Grecques en 
France; Annuaires ; Paris, 1868-71. 

+ 1. Pashley ; Travels in Crete ; Lon- 
don, 1837. — 2. Tozer ; Researches in 
the Highlands of Turkey ; London, 
1869. — 3. Viscount Strangford on the 
Cretan Dialect, in Spratt's Travels in 
Crete ; London, 1865. See also col- 
lected works of Viscount Strangford ; 
London, 1871. — 4. Clyde; Romaic and 
Modern Greek compared ; Edinburgh, 
1855. — 5. Donaldson ; Modern Greek 
Grammar; Edinburgh, 1853. — 6. Gel- 
dart ; the Modern Greek Language in 
its relation to Ancient Greek ; Oxford, 
1870. — 7. Professor Felton published a 
collection of pieces in modern Greek, 
which was once in my possession, but 
of which I cannot now recover the 
title. 



122 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

have produced in modern Greece, they are apt to talk of 
it altogether as a corruption, and as the pure result of 
phonetic decay. But this is only a part, and a small part 
of the truth. A language is corrupt when it abandons 
its own natural analogies, or adopts foreign ones, which do ' 
not harmonize with its original type, or when it is defaced 
and disfigured in various ways by sheer ignorance and 
carelessness. In this sense it is quite correct in Italian, 
for instance, to say, that donna is a corruption of domina, 
avuto of habitum ; and in the same way, in Neo-Hellenic, 
to say that ly/3dXKa> is a corruption of e/c(3d\\a), and fxa6alv(o 
of fjuavOdvo) ; and of such corruptions, no doubt, a large 
part of Italian, and a certain much less considerable part 
of modern Greek, is composed. But, on the other hand, 
it is no corruption when, in the progress of time, an old 
word comes to be used in a modified, or perhaps alto- 
gether different sense ; as when fcdfivco, in modern Greek, 
takes the place of iroiw, when o-tjkoco, which in Plutarch 
signifies to weigh, in modern Greek signifies to raise, 
when <j)0dvcD is used generally for d^>iKvio^ai, to arrive, or 
iratievay for ^ao-rcyoco, as they are not only in modern 
Greek, but in the New Testament. Such progressions 
and transmutations of meaning are always going on in all 
living languages, of which ample illustrations could be 
produced from English and every spoken language, if it 
were necessary. As little can it be called a corruption, 
when new forms blossom out from old roots, so long as 
these new forms follow the fair analogies of the language. 
No one, for instance, supposes that the English language 
is corrupted when we bring into currency such words as 
solidarity, complicity, utilize, and similar French forma- 
tions from Latin roots long ago acknowledged in both 
languages. In the same way, xpwwmw, voo-ri/jLevofiac, and 






THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 123 

other such words, are perfectly legitimate formations, 
even though it be true that the Attics were not in the 
habit of affixing the termination evco to verbals in fio? ; for 
the Athenians at all times had their peculiar local idioms, 
just as London has its Cockneyisms ; and the mere Attic 
usage could prescribe the law to the common Greek 
tongue, only so long as Athens remained the political and 
literary capital of Greece, which it ceased to be exclu- 
sively when the centre of intellectual activity was trans- 
ferred first to Alexandria and then to Byzantium. To 
write pure Attic Greek, after the Athenian literary dic- 
tatorship had ceased, was an affectation of which only 
pedantry or a false fastidiousness could be guilty. The 
barbarism to which, in a general way, a certain class of 
scholars would consign such words, is more justly regarded 
as an overgrowth of lusty vitality. Such new-coined 
words may not indeed be necessary ; the old words might 
have served all purposes equally well ; but they are the 
natural and legitimate product of the right of a living 
organism to put forth new shoots according to its type. 
If it be said that a word is always barbarous till it be 
stamped by the authority of a great classic of the lan- 
guage, I answer this may be a very healthy limitation 
which a writer at a certain period of the adult growth of 
a language may choose to put on his choice of vocables ; 
but it is to the eye of the philologer an arbitrary pro- 
cedure of which science can take no account. To him 
claritudo, and gratitudo, and heatitudo are perfectly good 
Latin words, whether Cicero happens to use them or not ; 
and in such words — what a nice Ciceronian of the Bembo 
school would brand as a departure from the norm of Latin 
purity — a philologer may often have cause to recognise a 
natural extension and fair enrichment of a meagre and 



124 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

inadequate medium of expression. If, therefore, Homer 
uses not only yXv/cvs, but yXv/cepos, there is no reason why 
a scholar should condemn as barbarous varieties of a 
similar description in the existing Greek tongue ; and if 
the ancients, in their exuberant play of terminational 
affixes, chose to say dXi)6ivd<s as well as d\7)6r}$, shall it be 
forbidden to the modern Greek to say raxwos as well as 
raxus, and fipwpepo? as well as ppcofiwh^ ? So in English 
one writer may say kingliness and another Tcinglihood 
(Tennyson), with equal right. But further, even in the 
case of corruptions properly so called, that is not a new 
growth of the language, but a breaking down of the old 
structure from sheer carelessness, or the intrusion of some 
extraneous element, there is a great and vital distinction 
to be made between those corruptions, which, to the eye 
of a philologer, look like a scar or a patch, and such as 
easily take their place and fit into the old structure of 
the language. Thus the word yefidro, from ye/mo, to be 
full, is a gross barbarism, for it attaches to a Greek root 
a Latin participial termination, which is at once recog- 
nised as something foreign and incongruous. It is as if, 
instead of the word obesity, we should talk of the fattosity 
of a corpulent person, a combination at once felt to be 
barbarous, though certainly our English tongue, through 
its loss of native terminations, has an excuse for incon- 
gruities of this kind, which could not be pleaded by the 
Greek. On the other hand, the modern Greek habit of 
substituting the diminutive for the simple word, and then 
cutting off the final or unaccented syllable, as when irailiov 
is used for irah, and then iraihl for Traihlov, is an offence 
against the ancient tradition readily condoned ; for by 
the emphasis of the accent on the accented syllable, the 
ear is already accustomed to the sound, which becomes 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 



125 



final when the short ultimate syllable is dropped. In 
the same manner, the favourite diminutive termination 
obKLy appearing in yepovrd/u, Kovrdiaov, SevSpaKc, and scores of 
other words, where analogically it is not the diminutive 
termination pertaining to such roots, passes lightly into 
the habit of the ear from the analogy of /xeipdfCLov, and 
other such words, where the a/c is part of the root. Of 
superficial and false analogies of this kind, both in flexion 
and in syntax, the structure of all languages presents 
sufficient instances. 

Proposition xii. — Following out the principles just 
stated, the first noticeable characteristic that strikes us 
in the Neo-Hellenic dialect is the remarkable change and 
extension that has taken place in the usage of certain 
words, giving rise to significations either altogether dif- 
ferent from classical usage, or deriving from that usage 
only their late and scarcely apparent germ. Of these I 
shall here set down some of the more remarkable : — 



(TYJKOO), 


to raise, 


weigh, balance. 


/3acrra£a>, 


to refrain, restrain, 


carry. 


Ka}xap(j)V(ji (o(o), 


to give one's-self airs, 
to admire, 


vault or arch. 


racrcro), 


to promise, 


arrange. 


(TVVTpkyjbi, 


to assist, 


run together. 


iSl'to/ACt, 


manners, 


a peculiarity. 


AaAw, 


sing, 


prate. 


Xwvw, 


conceal, 


heap up. 


crwva) (a-w£to), 


suffice, 


save. 


KVpLOSj 


a father, 


a master. 


KOfJ.j36<0, 


deceive, 


to bind up, gird. 


X<OV€V0) } 


digest, 


cast metal. 


^oc£aa), 


to die (of an animal), 


to make a slight noise 


fSpaSvy 


the evening, 


slow. 


7rpo£evos, 


a match-maker, 


patronus (in politics). 



126 



ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 





Modern. 


Ancient. 


7rAaKO(o, 


oppress, overwhelm. 


lay with flat plates. 


e^WTl/OJ, 


a fairy, 


extraneous, foreign. 


a^x 5 » 


to spare life, 


to die. 


/xeTewyotcr/za, 


an amusing tale, 


floating in the air. 


JSaariXevo), 


to set (of the sun), 


reign. 


7roSa7ros, 


a person of no account, 


from whence. 


Xa^co, 


lose, 


gape. 


avyq, 


morning, 


brightness. 


/3avw (/?cui/a>), 


place, set, 


go- 


<f>6dv(i), 


to arrive, 


to get before. 


avoids, 


the spring, 


opening. 


7rAaT^, 


shoulder, 


flat part of an oar. 


vTroKUfxevoVj 


a person, 


a subject. 


dpdcrcra), 


to land, 


to crash. 


o-Kid^ofxai, 


to be afraid, 


to shade one's-self. 


dSetd^oif 


to fire a gun, 


to give an amnesty. 


7rvev/xaTtKO, 


a clergyman, 


windy. 


ra X i', 


the morning, 


swift. 


yeu//,a, 


dinner, 


taste, smack. 


to, crcucTTa, 


sense, wits, 


things saved. 


orvfX7rd0eta ) 


pardon, 


sympathy. 


OKOTlfo, 


stun, astonish, 


darken. 



Proposition xiii. — But these changes of meaning 
and application in old words, however strange, and how- 
ever important to be noticed as presenting a practical 
difficulty to a student passing from the classical to the 
modern dialect, are only what must take place in any 
language, which for the space of more than a thousand 
years has been allowed to float freely on the surface of the 
popular mind without any central authoritative control. 
More characteristic of the peculiar genius of the Greek 
tongue is the luxuriant growth of new terminations to 
old roots, especially verbal, which the living dialect pre- 
sents. This habii^ of luxuriating in a variety of verbal 
forms differing nothing in signification, but displaying 
only, to adopt a botanical phrase, a greater breadth of 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 127 

terminal blossom, was characteristic of Hellenic speech 
from the earliest times. Thus, from the adjective ofj,a\o<; 
we have the three equivalent forms 6/ia\lfo, SfjLaXvvco, and 
ofiaXoco, for which our meagre English is only too happy to 
find that it possesses the single equalize ; and in the same 
way, from the root cre/3, we have the verbal forms o-efioficu, 
o-efid&ijLcu, cre/3/£a>, and later aefiao-fudZco (in Zonaras), all 
perfectly identical in signification. And though, no doubt, 
it may seem that d&, as in eX/cva-rdfa, and vfa as in epirvfya, 
had originally a frequentative meaning, yet this distinctive 
feature was lost in the growth of the language ; and 
between arevco and o-Tevdfa there is only a difference of 
sound, as, in Latin, between claritas and claritudo. Fol- 
lowing out this instinct of rich terminational ramification 
and efflorescence, the current Greek vocabulary presents 
such varieties as the following : — 



Modern. 


Ancient. 


SaKpv£a> y 


cip^ofiai. 
SaKpvu). 


ttcutx^, 
$o/fyt£a>, 


7racrx<«>. 
<fio/3e(i). 


rpofxc^u), 


rpop.e<a. 


apayyiafyi, 

Aa/3ow, to catch, hit, wound, 


dpa^vioo). 
XafJifSdv(x). 


Aoyia£co, 
fieXavtdfa, 

<TKOT€lVia£to, 

yopraivo}, 


Aoyi^o/xat. 
fxeXavi^ofxaL. 

CTKOTl^Ofiai. 

XOprdfa. 



All these are legitimate formations, being either parallel 
forms from the original root, or secondary verbs from the 
substantive of a primary verb, or the adjective connected 
with the substantive. Not unfrequently this luxuriance 
of terminational blossom shoots out into pregnant new 



128 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

formations, which have no parallel in the classical tongue, 

as in 

7T/\aytafa>, to fling one's-self down across the mattress and sleep. 

^eKapSt^byucu, my heart leaps out of my body, as with violent joy. 
dpKovStlo), to go on all-fours like a bear, as children do. 

A similar lustihood of terminational vitality — a point in 
which our English tongue is so remarkably feeble — dis- 
plays itself in the terminations of adjectives and substan- 
tives, some of which are authorized by ancient analogy, as 
in fipcopepo?, for BvacoSr)?, and others are a separate creation 
of the modern linguistic instinct, as in (jypovtfjudBa, voo-TifiaZa, 
and the whole family of abstract nouns in dha. 

Proposition xiv. — But it is not only in termina- 
tional variety that the ample vitality of the living Greek 
tongue asserts itself. As in the ancient, so in the modern 
dialect, the tendency to a florid growth of ever new com- 
pound words is irresistible. It is in the domain of the 
verbs again where this tendency exhibits itself most 
strongly. Here, of course, the compounding elements are 
often prepositions ; but other elements are not excluded ; 
and not a few very expressive compounds are formed from 
elements of which, for this purpose, the ancients made 
little or no use. Let the following serve as examples : — 

avaKarovu) (oo>), to turn upside down. 

a-rpecfioyvpL^o), to turn round and round. 

airoKap.ap6v(a 1 to contemplate with admiration. 

gavOoyvpofxaWos, having red and curly hair. 

TroXvo-Kovpidfo, to cover with rust. 

yzLXripLovKTpLlto, to neigh. 

tKKOKKivtfa, to turn pale, lit, to go out of the red. 

KaXoKVTTa^oy, to look favourably on. 

yXvKvcfaXQ, to give sweet kisses. 

yXvKvyapd^o), to break sweetly, as of the dawn. 

yXvKVKVTT<i£(i), to look sweetly on. 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 



129 



KOLKOKapSl^O), 


to displease. 


KaKOKVTT<i£(i)) 


to look with an envious eye on. 


KCLKocfcaiveTai, 


it displeases me. 


aa-Tpo7reAe/a£w, 


to lighten, lit., to send down meteor-axes. 


Xa/xoyeAaoyxa, 


a slight smile. 


\ap0K07T0S, 


a bon-vivant, a man of pleasure, a voluptuary. 


JJLOCT)(OfJLVpt(ofJLai, ) 
flO(TXol3o\0), J 


to be fragrant, odorous. 


Kkoi6oyvpL^(D : 


to spin round and round and lose one's way, 


6(f)0a\{xo<f)avio<s, 


for evapyws, i.e. clearly, distinctly, bodily. 


dva7ro8id^oi } 


to do a thing perversely, awkwardly. 


xpv)(07rai8iov 1 


an adopted son, son of my soul. 


ifv^oiroveio, 


to sympathize. 


fiovoTrdriov, 


a footpath. 


TraXaioyovpvofJLVTrjS, 


a swine-snouted old sot. 


Koo-fLoyvpio-Trjs, 


a world- perambulator, said of the sun. 


dvairoSoyvpifa, 


to turn upside down. 


(rv/JLTrooroiD, 


to amount to. 


fipe(f>ovpyai, 


to make incarnate. 


cnraraXo KpopASr) ?, 


an onion-gourmand. 


/So/J,f3oKTV7ri^O), 


to din the ears, obtundo. 


HocrypKapvov, 


nutmeg. 


€7TO(f)6aXjJLtl0 7 


to cast an envious eye on. 


eKfJLVCTTTJp I dfofJLOU, 


to reveal. 


Kpao"07raT6pas, 


a wine-bibber. 



These examples, and a host of others that might be 
adduced, show how absurd it is to class under the head 
of corruption those changes in a long-lived language, 
which indicate a buoyant juvenescence rather than a 
withered decrepitude of expression. Let us now turn 
our attention to those changes in the form of the lan- 
guage, which fall distinctly under the category of loss or 
abatement, though by no means necessarily under that 

of DEFACEMENT and DISFIGUREMENT. 



Proposition xv. — As language, in long ages of 
neglect and semi-barbarism, is used by the masses princi- 
pally for purposes of convenience, it is plain that considera- 

i 



130 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 






tions of an aesthetical nature, such as influence men of 
genius and high culture in their use of language, will be 
subordinated ; and the purely scientific considerations, on 
which the philologer puts a high value, will not influence 
the popular mind at all. Carelessness, convenience, cus- 
tom, and sometimes mere freak, fashion, and the itch of 
novelty, will produce important changes in the structure 
of a language which a delicate sense of harmony, and a 
scientific perception of organic completeness, would alike 
repudiate. Among the phenomena of this kind which 
continually tend to -break down the classical form of 
words, those known to grammarians under the heads of 
aphceresis, apocope, and syncope, are the most frequent. 
But, not to encumber a plain subject with learned phraseo- 
logy, we shall say simply, that all cultivated languages, 
when used merely for convenience, without the continued 
check of a higher aim, are liable to have their vocabulary 
changed by a process of curtailment which makes a part 
of the word serve for the whole. Thus in America, from 
the rattling haste in which the people delight, " an acute 
man" is called " a 'cute man;" from the same careless 
instinct, the ignorant English peasant, or the sharp Lon- 
don street boy, talks of the " varsity" instead of the 
" university ;" and the familiar words, bus and cab, are 
only the tail and head respectively of two polysyllabic 
words, borrowed the one from the Latin, the other from 
the French. That this is a corruption, not of a very ele- 
gant kind, no person will deny ; for even when the origi- 
nal form of the word may have died out from the popular 
memory, it requires only a little bookish culture to mak 
one feel that a segment has been cut from the full sound 
of the thing, the absence of which makes itself felt. Cur 
tailments of this kind are obvious everywhere in French 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 



131 



and Italian, and in not a few German words also derived 
from Latin and Greek, as in probst for 'propositus, jofingst 
for TrevTTjfcoo-rri, and such like. Now, it is manifest that 
these corruptions may be made in various ways. Some- 
times only a weak initial or final letter or short syllable 
may be dropt, which leaves the word not much the 
worse ; sometimes a half, and that not the most impor- 
tant half, may be left, after the amputation, and in such a 
fashion it may be, that only a scientific eye can recognise 
its original identity. One of the commonest forms of 
curtailment in Greek is that of an initial short vowel, 
of which the following list contains some of the most 
common : — ... 



Aiyos, 


for oXtyos. 


7TW/)fcKa, 


for oVto/OfcKa. 


fiaXia, 


,, apuXXa, 


f3pi(TK(3i, 


„ €Vpi(TKU). 


/ZlAto, 


,, o/ziAw. 


/3 Adyta, 


,, euAdyca. 


7T6S, 


,, et7re§ (ItTre). 


A^/zipt, 


,, 6Xrffj,epi. 


vos, 


„ eves. 


/3ayyeAiov, 


„ eiWyyeAiov. 


ifr)\6<s, 


„ viprjXos 1 


7re#v/xia, 


,, tTriOvpLia. 


fxkpa, 


„ rjfxepa. 


yovpbtvos, 


„ rjyovfitvos. 


fxepov(o : 


,, rjpLepoto. 


er<£aAi{a), 


„ d<T(f)aXi((D. 


Stopa, 


„ ISLlDfXa, 


7ravTVX at ^ w 


,, a7rai/Tv^aivo>. 


TravSpevofJLCU 


f ,, vwavSpevopai. 


(^ereivos, 


„ ecfyertvos. 


(TKVTTTOi 


,, eicTKvirra). 


partovia, 


J? aiparoo}. 


ycaXos, 


„ alyiaXos. 


prjpLOKXrjfTL, 


?J eprjpLa eKKXrjaria. 


peyofxai, 


„ dpeyo/xai. 


7rerpa)(rjXt } 


}) e7rirpa-)^yjXtov. 


o-a£a>, 


„ la-d(o). 


yeia, 


, j vyleia. 


(TiX>9lKa^ 


„ ecrcoOiKa, i.e. evroadta. 


7TMXIO, 


,, 07TlO-to. 


/x/3ati/a), 


„ e[xj3atvoj. 


ttas, 


„ ^/x5?. 


piropQi^ 


„ €/X7TOpW. 


Aa/xviu, 


,, eAai;i/(o. 


T6/H, 


,, €T0U/0OS. 


yAfrova), 


,, l*<AvTd(o= IkAl'w 
from Autos. 



In these cases of initial curtailment it will be seen 
that the vowel which falls off, as in the case of the 
American " 'cute," is generally a very feeble one, such 
as in rapid pronunciation is little missed. Sometimes, 

1 The highest peak of Mount Ida in Crete is now called Psiloriti, or High-mount. 



132 



ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 



however, it is a diphthong, though never an accented one, 

as in fiaroo) for alfiaroo), Bev for ovSev, yiaXos for alyiaXos, 
and some others. It may even be a whole syllable, like 
the Italian scuro for obscuro, as in BdafcaXos for StSdo-fcaXos. 1 

Proposition xvi. — But the end of the word presents 
to a hasty speaker even greater facilities than the begin- 
ning for a popular amputation, of which tendency the 
final m and s of the ancient Roman poets afford familiar 
examples. And here we find a remarkable analogy per- 
vading old Roman, Italian, and modern Greek. As the 
Roman dropt his final m, producing the Italian domino 
from the perfect form dominum, so the modern Greek 
regularly drops the final v, which with him corresponds 
to the Latin m, and says kcl\6 for tcaXov ; and not only so, 
but in diminutives he drops regularly the complete last 
syllable ov, so that all diminutives which are paroxytones 
in classical Greek come out with a sharp acute accent on 
the final syllable. Thus iraihlov becomes iraiU, Kpao-lov, 
Kpao-l, 2 just as in Italian amavit becomes amo, potestatem, 
podesta, and so forth. When the original word has the 



1 The following example 
curtailment in languages 
cracy : — 



s from Italian illustrate the same tendency to initial 
set free from the control of strict literary aristo- 



bieco 

scuro 

sciocco 

badia 

cagione 

stivali 

riccio 

Lamagna 

rame 

nemico 



for obliquum. 

„ obscurum. 

„ exscuccus. 

„ abbadia. 

„ occasione. 

„ sestivale. 

„ cirricius. 

„ Alemannia. 

„ seramen. 

„ inimico. 



stimare 

state 

sperto 

spietato 

sbarcare 

romita 

stra (French tres) 

mentre 



for sestimare. 
„ sestate. 
„ experto. 
„ dispietato. 

„ disbarcare, and other com- 
pounds with dis. 
„ eremita. 

extra, as in straordinario, 

and other compounds, 
dum-interim (Diez). 



2 The historic steps in the process were naidiov, naidiv, naiBi, the inter- 
mediate form appearing generally in Theodorus. 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 133 

oxytone accent, as in 7rorafio<;, Ke^aX-q, the accent of the 
curtailed diminutive lies on the penult iroTafiv, /ce^aKi, and 
many others. Similarly, a final oxytone in prepositions 
may fall off, as in air for airo. 

Proposition xvii. — It is manifest that both these 
kinds of amputation, by head and by tail, may be exer- 
cised upon the same word ; and then there arises some- 
times a new word consisting only of the middle syllable, 
or two middle syllables of the amputated diminutive, 
which it requires an exercised eye to detect. Of this 
double curtailment the following are a few familiar ex- 
amples : — 



shore, 


yiaAt, 


from 


a tyta A toy, 


cdyiaXos. 


eye, 
fish, 




n 

55 


ofxfidrtov, 
oxpdpiov, 


OfJLfJLa. 

oxpov. 


companies, 
oil, 


rkpi, 

AaSt, 


11 
11 


erou|0os, 
JAaSiov, 


eAaiov. 


vinegar, 
house, 


£t'St, 

CTTTlTi, 


11 
11 


6£v8iov, 

OO-TTLTLOV, (L 


6£v. 

at.) hospitiui 



A perfect analogy to this system of double amputation 
occurs in many English words, when their present form 
is compared with the original German word. Thus, our 
"fought" is "foughten" in old English, and gefochten in 
German. 

Proposition xviii. — As the Greek verb is the part 
of speech in which the formative instinct of that rich 
language blossoms out most luxuriantly, we should expect 
that in this domain the pernicious, or it may be in this 
case perhaps, the beneficial effects of amputation will best 
appear. And so in fact it is. For not only have indi- 
vidual verbal affixes and prefixes been lopped off, but 
whole tenses and moods totally disappear, to supply whose 



134 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

place auxiliary verbs after the fashion of the modern lan- 
guages are freely used. But as this is a matter that 
affects largely the syntax of the language, I shall reserve 
what is to be said on these organic losses for another 
section. In this place it will be sufficient to say, that of 
verbal curtailments falling under the heads of aphasresis 
and apocope, and not affecting the syntax of the language, 
the three following seem to be the principal : — (1.) The 
very irregular use and frequent omission of the augment. 
In this, however, it is superfluous to mention that the 
moderns follow the example of Homer, and that the loss 
is mostly as unimportant as that of the reduplicated 
second aorist of the poet was to the Athenians. (2.) 
The reduplication before the perfect participle passive is 
omitted — ypafjupevos for yeypa/jL/juevo^ This is a change pre- 
cisely analogous to that which the German has suffered 
in passing into English, as in given for gegeben, and so 
forth. (3.) The infinitive of the present infinitive active, 
after cutting off the terminative v, becomes ei, as jpdcpei 
for ypdfew, and that of the first aorist passive, in the 
same way after cutting off the terminal vat, becomes rj, as 
e\ev0epco0r}, for ekevOepcoOrjvcu. This again forms a perfect 
analogy to the process by which the v, which originally 
belonged to the full form of the infinitive, as e^evat,, ejifiep, 
elvaL, and which appears in the German, lieben, geben, is 
dropt in English, so that only the monosyllables love and 
give remain. 

Proposition xix. — A very peculiar and character- 
istic species of initial curtailment is that which takes 
place when a preposition precedes the definite article, and 
being absorbed by it, is pronounced as one word. Thus, 
et? tt]v tt6\lv, to the city, by curtailment of the initial diph- 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 135 

thong and absorption of the remaining consonant by the 
following article, become crrrjv ttoKlv, or, where the Dor- 
ism of a prevails, aravrroXLv, whence the vulgar Stamboul 
arising from a misunderstanding of the Franks. In the 
same way the ancient Cos was supposed to have been meta- 
morphosed into Stanco (eV rav Kco) ; and in Crete, accord- 
ing to Spratt, 1 they have actually NrjBa from eh rav Iha. 
A similar error, arising from the ignorance of the Low- 
landers, occurs in the Highlands, where Loch Nell, for 
instance, near Oban, receives its barbarous and unintel- 
ligible Saxon designation from the absorption of the defi- 
nite article na by the substantive eala, signifying a swan, 
as is the case also with Loch Ness, Moness, and other such 
names, occurring not unfrequently in the topography of 
the Highlands, where the Gaelic ais, signifying a water- 
fall, attaching to itself the n of the definite article, pre- 
sents to the uninstructed the false appearance of an 
independent word ness. In the same way the substantive 
verb vanishes into the following noun : as smellum so = is 
maith leum so, this is good with me, I like ; and spik orm, 
for is beag orm, this is little on me, I dislike. It is remark- 
able that in German it is not the preposition in such 
cases, but the article that is absorbed. Thus zu der be- 
comes zur, zu dem, zum, in das, his, and so forth. In 
Italian sometimes both the article and the preposition are 
curtailed, as in pel for per lo, nel for in Mo. 

Proposition xx. — Of syncope, or the dropping of 
consonants in the middle of a word, and of synizesis, or 
the slurring of two consecutive vowels into one syllable, 
there are not wanting examples in Romaic ; but, as they 
are neither so frequent as the initial and final curtailment, 

1 Travels in Crete, by Captain Spratt. London, 1865. 



136 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

nor occasion the same difficulty to the student, they may 
be slightly mentioned here. As in Homer we have /cd/3- 
/3a\e for KareXafie, and such like, so in Romaic we have 

<rvj3d%(0 for cru/x^i/Safo), cnrlQi] for onrcvOrip, /cdvco for icd/jLV(D, vvcj:r) 
for vvfjutyr}, (fxiLTO for (f>dyero, Xatvi for Xayeviov, TrevTrjVTa for 

irevTiqicovTa, and with a large initial curtailment aapdvra for 
Tea-aapaKovra. Two of the most familiar examples of this 
medial curtailment are those which take place on the verbs 
Xeyco and virdyco. When I was living a lodger in Athens, 
about twenty years ago, a little girl, the landlord's daugh- 
ter, as I was going out, used to say to me irov m-are. When 
I heard this first I was considerably puzzled, and began at 
once to think of irarew and pattens ; but this scent led me 
far astray, and on inquiry I found that the mystical dis- 
syllable was only a curtailed form of virdyeTe, as that word 
is used in the New Testament (Matthew xvi. 23). The 
same habit of dropping the medial gamma, I afterwards 
found, led to the forms Xe?, Xere, xiv, familiarly used for 
Xeyeis, Xeyere, and Xeyow ; and in like manner $av stands 
for <j)dyow. (So in Chaucer han for haben = have.) As to 
synizesis, or the slurring of two vowels into one syllable, 
which the readers of the Attic plays are quite familiar 
with, the modern Greek makes a systematic use of this 
figure in words of the first declension, such as o-ofyla, 
(f)(oria } fcap&la, accompanying the slur of the slender vowel 
with the transference of the accent to the strong final 
vowel Kapha. Sometimes in such cases the slight 
vowel is omitted altogether, as Kvpd for /cvpla, lady, 
mother. 

Closely connected with synizesis is the practice of 
crasis, so perplexing to the tyro in Sanscrit, and familiar 
to the ancient Greek in such cases as dvr)p for 6 dvf)p, wvep 
for w avep, and others. The most common phenomena of 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 137 

this kind in modern Greek, and on which a classical 
scholar will be apt to stumble, are such forms as — 



vycrcu, 


for 


tva el&ai, 


vaXOy, 


>? 


iv a. e'A#2/, 


™X ei > 


jj 


I'va e^et, 


™x«, 


>> 


to e'x«, 


Trwp^erat, 


?> 


07TOV e/)^e 


TW7ra, 


5) 


to It7ra, 



and others of a similar description, which occur frequently 
in the Erotocritus. 

Proposition xxi. — These remarks, taken singly, might 
naturally lead to the idea that modern Greek is a sort of 
amputated ancient Greek, as the Saxon half of English is 
a sort of amputated German — a meagre dialect in which 
every dissyllable has been cropped down into a monosyl- 
lable, and every trisyllable into a dissyllable. But this is 
by no means the case. Miserable and meagre, in point of 
vocal swell and syllabic roll, as our truncated Saxon tongue 
would have been, had it not been reinforced by the strong 
intrusion of the sonorous element from the classical lan- 
guages, the tongue of the ancient Hellenes has suffered no 
such loss as to produce any bald disfigurement of this 
kind. The explanation of this is obvious. The words of 
the Greek language are so exuberantly polysyllabic, that 
the abstraction of a single syllable from each word would 
leave the great body of the language still distinctly poly- 
syllabic ; thus, Vt^y/xw falls upon the ear with pretty much 
the same amplitude as the full form eiriOvixco. But further, 
the fact is that the curtailments of which we have spoken 
affect only a limited class of words ; and, singularly enough, 
the largest class to which apocope is applied contains a 
compensation which leaves the apocopated word as many 
syllables, or perhaps more than the original word of the 



138 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

classical tongue. This apparent paradox arises out of that 
substitution of diminutives for the original word, which 
we have already noted as characteristic of the modern 
dialect. For the diminutive in Greek, and all the Aryan 
languages, while it lessens the idea, increases the magni- 
tude of the word, as in /3pe<fio<;, /3pecf>vX\Lov, fiecpa^, fieipa/ciov, 
adpi;, aapicapiov, and so forth, from which the consequence 
follows, that where a diminutive is systematically substi- 
tuted for the simple word, and afterwards apocopated, the 
syllabic magnitude of the word is not diminished. Some- 
times it may even be increased, as waiBl, iraihiov, irals ; tto- 
ra/jbc, TTorafuov, irorafjuo^ ; yepovraKL, yepovraiciov, <yepovri,ov, yepcov. 
If to these considerations we add the exuberant, amplin- 
cative and expansive tendency of the Greek language, and 
its delight in the formation of new compounds (p. 128 
above), we shall be prepared to believe that the exis ting- 
Greek language is no wise inferior to its classical proto- 
type in point of syllabic amplitude, and the student of 
Aristophanes, whose ear swells with pleasure at the o-fypa- 
yiBovvxapyoKo/jLrjrrj^, and other sesquipedalian luxuries of the 
jovial Attic comedian, will not be surprised at encounter- 
ing 'xaftLctpoicaTeXvTos, aKovfiTTpoiraXajJiLhoiraaTo^i eyypavXoTraaTO- 
$dyos, and such like, in his meagre Byzantine follower. 

Proposition xxii. — The practice of substituting the 
diminutive regularly for the simple word, which we have 
just mentioned, deserves further the special remark, that, 
besides being a characteristic of Italian, as in sorella, 
fratellOy uccello, etc., it had its origin in the earliest 
classical times, as we see in the Latin oculus, from the 
old root okkos (Hesych.), Sanscrit akshi, in auricula, 
Italian orecchia, for auris, and in the classical Greek 
Oriplov, irehiov, and a few others. In Aristophanes the 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 139 

frequent use of the diminutives must strike every reader ; 
and we see here, as in most other instances, that what we 
call modern Greek is merely the natural development and 
full growth of tendencies deeply rooted in the heart, if 
not always visible on the surface of the classical tongue. 

Proposition xxiii. — The chapter of curtailment on 
which we have been dilating, so common in the progress 
of all languages, suggests, as its natural complement and 
counterpart, that of addition or increment, whether this 
addition be real, that is, an appendage posteriorly added 
to the root, or only a part of the root, by change of 
circumstance brought to the surface after a long period of 
concealment, as happens to seeds sometimes by the process 
of deep trenching. It is a well-known fact in the classical 
Greek language, that familiar words sometimes appear in 
two forms, the one differing from the other only by the 
addition of an appended letter or syllable, — an appendage 
which, when it appears in the front of the word, is techni- 
cally called prosthetic, and when at the end paragogic. 
Thus we have p^fles and e^tfe?, iceivos and e/ceZvo?, fiavpoco and 
diMdvpoeo and not a few others. The same phenomenon 
appears largely in the comparison of different languages of 
the same family, as in dent, oBovr, ofypvs and our brow, aarr\p 
(Gaelic, bruach), star, Sanscrit tara, relpea (Horn.) Now, 
though in many of these cases it is quite plain that curtail- 
ment has taken place, as when pater becomes athar in 
Gaelic, and jilenits Ian, it seems pretty certain that in others 
the taste or fashion of some particular time and place has 
added a letter to the original root. For this addition 
there may be various causes, demonstrative emphasis per- 
haps, as in the celui-ci and celui-ld of the French, or mere 
euphony, as in the favourite habit of the Italian ear, which 



140 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

leads them to avoid a consonantal ending ; thus sunt be- 
comes not son, but sono. To determine the history and 
significance of these prosthetic and paragogic letters is in 
many cases one of the most difficult tasks of scholarship ; 
and on some of these problems the masculine erudition of 
one of the greatest of German scholars has been not un- 
worthily spent ; ] but to enter into such discussions here 
would lead too far from the main purpose of this discourse ; 
so I shall merely set down a few of the more notable of 
these enlargements of the old Greek form which the exist- 
ing popular dialect presents, without speculating curiously 
on their origin. In the first place, we have sometimes, 
though far from regularly, a vowel appended to the third 
person plural of the indicative mood, Xeyowe for \eyow, 
hXeyave for eXeyav, quite in the Italian fashion. Similarly, 
among the pronouns we meet frequently with rove for tov, 
just as the Athenians said ovrocrl for ovto$, and e/ceivoat for 
i/ceivo? ; then for avrov we have clvtovvov, for airy)?, avTrjvrjs, 
and avT7]vrj<i rrjs. Among the particles we have dvrk for 
dvrly and Tore? for rdre. This final ? appears in the impera- 
tive of certain verbs, as in et7re?, by apocope Ve?, follow- 
ing the ancient analogy of So? and 0e?. The accusative 
of the pronouns of the first and second persons presents 
the lengthened forms of hfiiva and haeva. The demon- 
strative, on the other hand, is lengthened only in the 
front, and tovto becomes erovro. To2o<; is subject to a redu- 
plication, and becomes reVoto?. A prosthetic t before two 
initial consonants, of which the first is a, is familiar to the 
student of the Romanic languages, and appears in the 
modern Greek Igkiov for <tkicl} This initial o- itself is added 



1 Pathologia Grceci Sermonis.— Lo- in Italian when the previous word 
beck, Konigsberg, 1853. ends in a consonant, as con isdegno for 

2 This prosthetic i appears regularly con sdegno. But this is only the occa- 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 141 

in some words, as in <tk6vt\ for tcdvi?, just as in the classical 
dialect fit/epos and o-fiifcpo? appear in friendly company. 
The letter 7, which appears sometimes as a prosthetic 
letter, seems to be a modification of the rough breathing, 
as in yvids for iW?, yiepdfa for iepdfccov, from XepaJ*. But this 
7 has a tendency to show itself not only in the front of 
words, but specially in the middle between two vowels, 
by the figure known to the old grammarians as epen- 
thesis. Thus we have — 



craAaryo), 


for 


craXevoi. 


yvpevyo), 


33 


yvpeva). 


ayovpos, 


33 


doypos. 


Ka/3aX\iK€vyo), 


53 


Kaf3a\XtKevo). 


avyov, 


3) 


(OOV, 


0tipyi6, 


J) 


O-qpio = drjpiov. 


Xdyovra, 


33 


Xaovra (lute). 


TrXeyo), 


33 


TrXkio. 


payefn, 


33 


paiQo. 


o-repyios, 


33 


crrepeos. 


fioyydii). 


J3 


Podia, 


dyvavrevio, 


from 


ivavTtos. 



That this epenthetic 7 is a relic of the famous digamma, 
which plays such a redoubtable part in the criticism of 
the Homeric text, is a favourite notion with scholars. 
That it actually is so in some cases seems probable ; 
scarcely in all, I should think, or in the majority of cases. 
One of the most notable epenthetic lengthenings of 
classical words occurs in the present indicative of certain 
classes of verbs, by the insertion of v. Thus, in all liquid 
verbs ; for G-rekXco, o-reXvco, for (j)epG) 3 <j>€pva>, KoXvdco for KoXkdco, 
a fashion clearly traceable in the. New Testament. There 
we have Bepvco for Secpco, oindvoiiai for ottto/jlcil, xvvcd for x ea) > 

sional form of the word for the sake of French, it is always prefixed, even 

euphony ; the rule is, that, while in where no traces of it are found in 

Italian the initial e or i in such cases Latin. Cornewall Lewis on the Romanic 

is never added, but regularly rejected, Languages, 2d edit. p. 107. 
in Provencal, Spanish, and early popular 



142 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

and others. In fact, this peculiarity is as old as Homer, 
who has dvvco and Bvvco for dvco and Svco, and the lengthened 
form of dyive'a) for ayo). We need not therefore be sur- 
prised at its great prevalence in modern Greek. From 
the Alexandrians downwards, the people have always 
been in the habit of inserting a v before the final vowel of 
the large class of verbs in dco ; as in the common <tkot6vco, 
to darken ones day-lights — to kill, cpavepdvco, Kafjuapdvco, and 
many others. But this v is found also in other and less 
marked cases, as in dcplvco from dtyirjfii, acovco for <rw&, fid™ 
for fiasco, yapivto for yapi^co, tye'vcD for etya), yfrayva) for yfrava}. 
This is a peculiarity, indeed, to which every one must 
tune his ear who wishes to read modern Greek with any 
comfort. 1 

The remarkable paragoge of /ca, which appears in the 
vulgar form of the first aorist passive, iypdcf)67)Ka for eypdcp- 
6tjv, appears to have arisen from an illiterate confusion 
of the terminations of the past forms of the active and 
passive voice. 

Proposition xxiv. — The process of partial disinte- 
gration ar-d reconstruction to which modern Greek, like 
Italian and French, owes its birth, is governed by a law 
which seems to belong naturally to all human speech 
under similar circumstances, what I may call the law 
of simplification and regularisation. All language, 
by the natural action of the human mind, is constructed 
originally on the principle of likeness and analogy ; but 
when, by the mixing of diverse tribes, or from other 

1 Mr. Geldart (c. iv.) remarks that, as XevKaivco the v is retained through - 

" in ancient Greek we may regard alvco out all parts of the verb, whereas in 

as a strengthened form of ea>, and dvco the modern ctkotovco, and such like, it 

as a strengthened form of aca." This belongs only to the present indicative, 
may be quite true ; only in such verbs 



THE MODEBN GREEK LANGUAGE. 143 

causes, irregularities and anomalies have once got a place 
in it, which disregard or contradict its characteristic analo- 
gies, the establishment of a classical norm of speech, by 
a succession of authoritative writers, may stereotype such 
irregularities as a recognised part of the language for an 
indefinite period. Thus in English the irregular plurals 
— fragments, by the way, of an old regularity — men, 
vjomen, oxen, and a few others, remain fixed ; and so in 
Greek, the aoristic forms in Ka, eOrjKa, eScofca, r)Ka, contrary 
to the general rule of verbal formation. But so soon as 
the firm control of intellectual authority is weakened, as 
by the removal of some artificial constraint, the popular 
ear falls back on the familiar analogy, and abolishes the 
anomaly ; and thus in modern Greek, eOrjica becomes eOeo-a, 

e$a)/ca eScocra, dveyvcov dveyvcoaa (also in ancient Ionic), and 
so forth. A familiar example of this tendency is the 
seed for seen, coomed for come, etc., of the common people 
in England. Similarly we find in Greek etyepOrjv from 
<pepa), /3a\fjuevo<; for /3e/3\77yu,ez>o<?, KaXecr fie'vcx; for fce/cXrj/jLevo^. To 
the same category belongs the total abolition of all verbs 
in [Mi, the relic, as is well known, of the oldest form of 
the verb in the Aryan languages. Thus, as early as the 
New Testament epoch, from the general use of earriKa as 
a present, the new regular form are'/cco had been produced, 
which is the only form of the old to-rrj/iL now used in the 
Greek tongue. So for S/Sw/u we have now SlSm, for riOrjfit, 
a secondary verb, era, formed from the verbal adjective 
0€to?, like darareco (l Cor. iv. 11) from ao-Taros, and araTos, 
for dcpLTj/jLL, dcjyivco, and for Traplcrrrj/jbL, irapicrTalvco (Hom. xii. l). 
So much for the verbs. Among the nouns this tendency 
displays itself most strikingly, as in Italian, in the habit 
of taking the objective case of nouns of the third de- 
clension, and turning it into a new nominative, to be 



144 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

declined after the fashion of the first or second declen- 



sion. 1 


Thus,— 












r) firjTtpa, 


from 


fxi]Tqp. 






r) TreStaSa, 


?? 


7reStds. 






r) dyeXdda, 


» 


dyeXds. 






r) <£A.€/?a, 


?j 


<$>Xk\p. 






r) (f>T€pa, 


?) 


TTTCplS. 






r) cfiopaSa, 


J5 


<f>op as. 



And this termination dSa, when it had once caught 
the popular ear, became a favourite norm for the forma- 
tion of abstract substantives even when there was no 
objective case of the third declension from which to make 
the transfer. Thus, — 

For XafjiTrpoTy]?, XapirvpaSa. 

For cf>p6vrj(TLS, (ppovrjjxdSa. 

From vS(ttl[jlos voa-rtfidSa. 

In the same way with masculines, — 

For c/xos, e'/oeoTas. 

,, TraTiqp, Trarepas. 

„ arjp, depas. 

„ jSacnXevs, (^acnXuds. 

„ rex (Lat.) prjyas. 

For, in fact, 9 in non- Attic Greek was the favourite 
termination of masculine agents, as we see in Cosmos, 
Ducos, and other proper names of the Middle Ages. So 
for the Attic dpToiroios, they preferred the shorter form 
dpTfl?, for oypokoyoiroLo^, wpoXoyds, and many others. The 

1 Cornewall Lewis, in his essay on larly as objects of our thoughts and 

the Romanic Languages (2d edit. 1862, feelings, that is, grammatically, we 

p. 91), while tracing this tendency to generally use the objective case ; and 

prefer the accusative case through all even in the case of agents, we feel 

the Romanic languages, says that " he more strongly, and have to express 

is unable to suggest any very satisfac- more frequently, our action on them 

tory explanation" of the phenomenon. than their action on us ; as, I like him, 

The explanation seems simply to be I hate him, I tell him, I order him, / 

that, in the case of most nouns, which forbid him, etc. 
are not agents, we think of them regu- 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 145 

prevalence of this termination is specially marked by the 
systematic use of the form (SkeirayvTas for jSXeircov as the 
nominative of the participle, and that in both genders. 
The termination o? of the second declension is sometimes 
used in the same way, as yepo<$ for yepcov, Spd/co? for Spd/ccov ; 
of which confusion we have examples also in the classic 
authors, as dxdo-ropos (Homer, iEschyl., and Soph.) for dxdcr- 
Toop, iidprvpo? for fidprvp. To the same category of regular- 
isation belong, of course, the forms fcaXiJTepos, nroWoTaro^, 
/.ceya\^T€po<;, /jLeyaXoraros, for the well-known irregular forms 
of the classical grammar. 

Pkoposition xxv. — The previous observations relate 
exclusively to the changes that time has wrought on 
individual words, apart from their relation to one an- 
other. The elements of language which indicate the 
method of the connexion of one word with another, or 
of one sentence with another, are chiefly the cases of 
nouns, the tenses and moods of verbs and prepositions 
and conjunctions. Every change, indeed, made on a 
verb by diminution or increase, does not mark a change 
in the law of the dependence of words on each other, or 
of sentences on sentences ; but for the sake of a complete 
view (in addition to what was said above), it will be con- 
venient to note the principal changes made on the verb 
in this place. Now, every one who bears in mind the 
prodigal luxuriance of form in the Greek verb will be 
prepared to find that the change here falls almost exclu- 
sively under the category of loss. Thus the common 
third person plural of the present indicative in ow, some- 
times owe, is a manifest curtailment of the old Doric ovti, 
Latin tint. This ow of the indicative is then transferred 
to the subjunctive, and we have irpdgow for irpd^wat, and 

K 



146 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

similar forms. The next thing that strikes us is the 
total disappearance of that double form of the aorist, 
which gives so much annoyance to young students of the 
classical tongue. The first aorist with the a as its final 
syllable has gained a decided victory over the o form in 
the active voice ; and in the passive the aspirated form 
which appears in earaXd^v is preferred to the Attic 
earaXyv. Thus, even when the second aorist is retained, 
because no first aorist existed, it assumes the a, which is 
the characteristic of the first aorist. So eXa/Sav for eXafiov, 
a peculiarity already prominent in the Septuagint. But 
the two most striking amputations which the verb has 
suffered, and which most prominently affect the syntax, 
are those of the optative and the infinitive mood, both 
changes for which the way was fully prepared in ancient 
times, as the student of the New Testament must be 
aware. The loss of the optative as the natural and sym- 
metric form, of the conjunctive after a past tense in the 
leading clause, is no doubt in an assthetical point of view 
to be lamented. Its effect in modern Greek is the same 
as if in English we should say, " I gave you this property 
that you may enjoy yourself on it." Practically, however, 
it occasions no ambiguity, and accordingly we find that, 
in the language of the New Testament, the place of the 
optative in such dependent clauses is almost always taken 
by the subjunctive ; and not in the New Testament 
only, but frequently in Plutarch, and not seldom even in 
Thucydides. It may be said, therefore, with perfect 
truth, that the dropping of the optative is in the end an 
improvement, rather than a corruption of the language ; 
as it is better that a person should be dead altogether 
than that, being alive, his occasional presence should 
serve only to remind us with the more acute pain of his 






THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 147 

habitual absence. But the loss of the infinitive mood is 
something to which the thoroughbred classical scholar 
will feel it much more difficult to reconcile his ear. If 
there is one thing more than another that distinguishes 
the flexible grace of Greek syntax from the somewhat 
formal dignity of the Roman, it is the frequent use of 
the infinitive mood. And one cannot but express a 
wonder at first blush, that a form of expression so con- 
venient and so flexible as the infinitive certainly is, 
should have given place to the lumbering form of a con- 
junction with tbe subjunctive or indicative mood. But 
so it is ; for even the Greeks in their best days said olSa 
co? or on, instead of the less circuitous infinitive or par- 
ticiple ; and the Romans, who, for a special class of cases 
well known to school-boys, had prescribed the accusative 
before the infinitive as the only form, before the time of 
St. Augustine began pretty generally to say, Scio quod 
Petrus est vir doctus, or even quia, which is the mother 
of the French que and the Italian die. Whence the 
habit now so characteristic of modern Greek took its rise 
of using va (for tva), with the subjunctive instead of the 
old infinitive, it seems useless to inquire. I have some- 
times thought it might be by a contagion caught from 
the Roman syntax ; but the relation of the two languages 
was of such a kind as to create a current of contagion 
from Greek upon Latin syntax (as indeed we see in 
Tacitus) rather than the reverse. I shall say, therefore, 
it was only a change of fashion. Certain it is that the 
partiality for Iva with the subjunctive mood appears 
already largely developed in the New Testament in cases 
where a classical ear feels the want of the familiar infini- 
tive. But custom, which exercises a despotic authority 
in such matters, soon reconciles us to the change ; which, 



148 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

indeed, when considered apart from the habit of the ear, 
is anything but an important one, and quite in harmony 
with the commonest grammatical phenomena, both in 
ancient and modern languages. When I say in English, 
for instance, it is too bad that you should do so and so, I 
am merely using the modern Greek syntax of Seovov va 
tcl rotavra /cd/nr}? for the classical Betvbv to ra roiavra oe'ye 
irparrecv ; and the apparently more awkward syntax, Sia 
to va irpa-^Owcri TavTa, for Trpa^Orjvai TavTa, is again Only the 
English on account of the fact that, and the Latin prop- 
terea quod. There is only one other amputation in the 
Greek classical verb which must be mentioned, for it is 
certainly the most grievous of all. I mean the loss of 
the future and the pluperfect, with the substitution 
therefor of the auxiliary verbs, OeXco or 6d, and e%w. Now, 
it is no doubt true that the particle dv, so familiar in the 
classical dialect, and ice in Homer, could have been no- 
thing in their origin but auxiliary verbs ; and so 6a may 
plead a classical precedent. True also it is that the verb 
e^ft) is not unfrequently in the tragic writers joined with 
the past participle in a way that has some analogy to the 
function of an auxiliary verb ; but it is in reality very 
different ; and as there is nothing in modern Greek that 
so offends the polite ear of the elegant scholar as the 
presence of these auxiliary verbs, it is matter of con- 
gratulation that the best modern writers know so rarely 
and so dexterously to use them, that the offence is prac- 
tically reduced to a minimum, and with some writers 
appears to cease altogether. There is another character- 
istic of Neo-Hellenic prose closely allied to such essenti- 
ally modern syntactic combinations. I mean the use of 
such modern turns of speech as fidWa) eU irpafyv, to put 
into execution ; ydvw ttjv o-TpaTav, to lose the way ; tcdjj,v<D 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE, 119 

iravla, to make sail, etc. ; and in respect of these also it is 
comfortable to remark, that even in the lowest phase of 
the language they are much fewer than might have been 
expected, and in the more cultivated forms are becoming 
fewer and less prominent every day. 

Another severe syntactic loss which the modern dialect 
has suffered is the disappearance of the dative ease, and 
the confounding of that case, not only with the accusa- 
tive, as in our English pronoun him, but with the geni- 
tive. The loss of the cases, as is well known, takes place 
naturally from the relations originally expressed by the 
terminational affixes having become obscured to the 
popular ear ; a process which was sometimes precipitated 
by a confusion in the pronunciation of cognate diphthongs, 
as when tov was pronounced rw, or the contrary. This 
loss is repaired, in the first place, by the use of preposi- 
tions along with case-affixes, in which conjunction they 
are in fact tautological, as in the Homeric phrase ef 
i/ieOev. Afterwards, when the removal of all authori- 
tative control and the weakening of precedent have 
allowed the affixes to be dropt or confounded, the prepo- 
sitions take their place as the alone significant element, 
and attach themselves prominently or exclusively to 
the accusative as the dominant case. Thus, in modern 
Greek, airo takes the accusative, and eh, usurping the 
function of ev, is joined with the same case, whether its 
signification be in or into. This is the case in Scotch also, 
as we say, " a head wi' a muckle lot in till't" i.e. in it ; 
and both in Latin and in German there is only one form 
for eU and ev. 

In reference to the connexion of clauses there are 
only two observations more to be made ; one, that the 
relative 6? is in the modern dialect frequently replaced 



150 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

by o oiroios (the Italian il quale), or simply by the inde- 
clinable o7rov, somewhat as in English we say, whereof 
and wherefrom, instead of of which and from which. In 
German the adverb so is used in the same way ; and 
among ourselves, with the uneducated, as often serves 
the same purpose. The other point is the confounding 
of o>? av or adv with <w? ; and combined with this the for- 
mation of some new conjunctions, of which the most 
common are, — 



ay/caAdt, 


though. 


¥i 


but. 


d)S TO(TOV 7 


meanwhile. 


els rocrov ottou, 


the while — while that 



/xe oXov tovto, nevertheless. 

Some new prepositions and adverbs, or old forms cur- 
tailed, may also here be noticed, as, — 



(TVfAfJL(l } 




near. 


fX€, 




with. 


fiatf, 




with. 


fJLecra, 




in, into, within. 


okoyvpa, 




for irepl. 


St'xws, 




for x^pfe) oivev. 


to, Icria (soehen, 


German), 


for avTLKa. 



This phenomenon appears also in the Romanic dia- 
lects, 1 and seems to belong naturally to a language in a 
state of nascent or complete disintegration. 

Proposition xxvi. — Not the least important element 
in the new phasis of an old language is that which 
either does not appear at all, or is only partially repre- 
sented in the Dictionary — viz. the pronunciation. This 
is a matter with regard to which, from the Eeformation 

1 See Cornewall Lewis, chap, v., for Provencal prepositions, adverbs, and 
an analysis of the French, Italian, and conjunctions. 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 151 

downwards, very fierce battles have been fought between 
the living Greeks and the great majority of classical 
scholars ; but after three centuries of ink-shed, and now 
that in the great German school an accurate philology has 
been added to a large philosophy, we feel warranted in 
asserting that the great salient points of the question 
have been planted before the thinking scholar in their 
right aspect. No person who has examined the subject 
will now deny that, while correct Greek speakers pro- 
nounced their prose orations both according to accent and 
quantity, in prose the accent was the dominant element, 
while quantity prescribed the law to poetry. 1 Then as to 
the sounds of the individual vowels and diphthongs, while 
on the one hand no sensible person will suppose or attempt 
to prove that the present vocalisation of the Greek tongue 
has remained in all respects unchanged from Homer down- 
wards, on the other hand, such a person will regard it as 
no less certain that the comparative tenuity, the so-called 
itacism of the modern dialect, is a peculiarity of very 
ancient date in the language, being in fact clearly noted 
by Quinctilian in the marked contrast which he draws 
between the strong Roman language and the slender 
Hellenic. 2 As little will any well-informed scholar in 
these days be bold enough to assume the advocacy of that 
altogether arbitrary pronunciation of Greek wmich has 
obtained currency in this country — a pronunciation which 
both corrupts vocalisation by the insular anomalies of 
John Bull, and travesties intonation at almost every step 
by the arbitrary substitution of the Latin for the Greek 
accent. On this basis, and emancipated formally from 

1 For the detailed proof and illustra- Society, Edinburgh, March 1871, and 

tion of this, I must refer to my paper in this volume below, 
on the Power and Place of Accent in 2 JVbn possumus esse tarn geaciles ; 

Language, Transactions of Eoyal simus fortiores. — Instit. Oral. xii. 10. 



152 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

the evil habit of our English school utterance, we may state 
the position of the modern Greek with regard to accent, 
quantity, and vocalisation, very simply thus. The accent, 
with a very few exceptions, has asserted its supremacy on 
those very syllables of the word where its emphasis was 
marked by the grammarian, Aristophanes of Byzantium, 
in the early days of the Ptolemies ; and the circumstance 
that, wherever a word is curtailed by dropping an initial, 
or final syllable, or both, the accented syllable always 
remains, as containing, to use Diomede's phrase, " the 
soul of the word j" 1 this circumstance of itself were suffi- 
cient proof, though all others were wanting, that emphasis 
or stress, in the modern sense, and not mere elevation, as 
some English scholars hastily assume, was the essential 
element in that affection of articulate speech which the 
Greeks called tovo? (stress or strain, from relvco). When 
we reflect what extensive changes in English accentuation 
have taken place with us since the time of Chaucer, we 
shall consider this persistency of the same element in the 
Greek, during a period of more than two thousand years, 
a phenomenon not a little remarkable, and we shall rejoice 
to think that the great Byzantine grammarian, if not in 
the general practice of English scholars, certainly in the 
living tradition of his people, and in the practice of the 
national Church, has received the reward which he 
deserved. But the accent, like other strong forces, having 
lost the salutary control of a hereditary school of music, 
has not only maintained its position, but invaded the 
domain of quantity ; so that with the modern Greek the 
word avdpcoTros, for instance, is pronounced not like the 
English word landholder, as it was by Demosthenes, but 
like the English word abbacy, or atrophy, that is, with 

1 Accentus est anima vocis. — Diomede ; Putschius, Gram. Lat. Auct., p. 425. 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 153 

the middle syllable curtailed of its natural volume of 
sound. The fact of the matter is, that there is in all 
language a popular tendency to cheat the unaccented 
syllable of its full quantity, especially when it comes im- 
mediately after an accented syllable ; and to this tendency 
Latin yielded at an early period (as we see from the short 
final 6 in Martial) and Greek probably about the same 
time. Along with this abuse, there crept in also in Greek 
that other one, of dwelling, in many cases, upon the 
accented syllable in such a manner as to change its natural 
quantity from short to long ; just as the Scotch, who as a 
rule speak slower than the English, draw out the accented 
syllable in many words, such as majesty, national, which 
the English pronounce short. The consequence of this 
excessive emphasis of the accent is, that in their rhymed 
poetry the Greeks find no offence in echoing alva by <=va, 
fjuevos by privos, and so forth ; which is just the same as if 
we were to abolish the difference between hare and her, 
mane and men, pope and pop. Then again as to the 
vowel sounds. In the face of the distinct gamut of the 
vowels given by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (De Structurd 
Orationis, xiv.), it is impossible to maintain that the 
itacism now universally prevalent was considered correct 
speaking (though it might perhaps have been the vulgar 
fashion) in the days of Augustus Csesar. We must say, 
therefore, that the present fashion of pronouncing v like ee 
is a corruption and an enfeeblement of the classic speech, 
in so far as it substitutes a weak and feminine for a strong 
and masculine sound. The like verdict must be pro- 
nounced on the itacising of the delicate sound of v, which 
was equivalent to the German il in Brilder, and the Scotch 
ui in bluid, guid — a vulgarizing of a fine sound to which 
the descent, when corruption once sets in, is very prone ; 



154 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

as we find even now in Saxony, where Briider is com- 
monly pronounced breeder, and in Aberdeen, where the 
south country guid is squeezed out into gweed. 

Proposition xxvii. — It is another question alto- 
gether, how far the euphony of the Greek language, con- 
sidered as an sesthetical product, has been affected by 
these corruptions. Latin was corrupted in a similar 
fashion, and came out of the process, not only not less, 
but, as some think, considerably more euphonious, in the 
shape of Italian and Spanish. The mere change from 
quantitative to accented poetry implies no absolute caco- 
phony ; it is merely the introduction of a new rhythmical 
law, and the transference of the musical weight of a word 
in verse from one syllable to another. This the beautiful 
hymnology of the Latin Church sufficiently attests ; and 
no man of taste, who knows how to read these composi- 
tions, will speak less favourably of the unrhymed accented 
chants of the Byzantine Church, except, of course, in so 
far as he may feel the want of the pleasant recurrent 
sweetness of rhyme. 

X a <7° € avT-qp, k/x^aivwv rbv yjXiov. 
X a W € yao-rrjp kvBkov crapK(o(rem' 
^aipe, St' ->]s veovpyetTcu f] ktlctis, 
X<xt)o€ St' rj<$ f3pe<f>ovpyeLTCU 6 KTt(TT7]s, 
X a ^P € , vv/j,<f>rj dvv/xfavTe. 1 

Then, as to the effect of the excessive frequency of the 
feeble sound of i, expressed by the term itacism, we must 
bear in mind that, though the modern pronunciation 
applied absolutely to certain picked lines of the ancient 
classics might produce a very petty vocal effect, it does 

1 Sergii, v^lvos aKciOicrTos rrjs Georo- tianoruin. Christ ei Paranikas. Leips. 
kov. Anthol. Graeca Carminum Chris- 1871, p. 140. 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 155 

not at all follow that the same result will be produced 
when the modern language is used by those who know 
how to handle it. Such a sequence of weak identical 
sounds, for instance, as occurs when the law of itacism is 
applied to a word like ir\7)0 uvdeirj, does not exist in the 
Neo-Hellenic verb ; for the optative is obsolete. But 
further, it seems to be quite certain, that, if certain lines 
in classical Greek have their music marred by the applica- 
tion of the modern itacism, the harmony of the whole 
language is destroyed by the barbarous English pronun- 
ciation of the diphthong ov, in which the rude canine ow 
is substituted for the soft and velvety oo. And with 
regard to this beautiful ov, which the English so pervert, 
it is a noticeable fact, that not only is it one of the most 
prominent sounds in classical Greek, but it has extended 
its sphere in the modern dialect so as to produce some 
new and sonorous terminations. How beautiful, for 
instance, are the diminutives in ov\a, as — 



pa\ovXa } 


for pa-xi- 


fiavovka, 


„ fMOLVT]. 


avyovXa, 


,, avy?/. 


^or/ovAa, 


n <£cov^. 


TrepSiKovXa, 


, 3 irephiKLOv. 


7raAata KA^crovAa, 


,, 7raAata Ik/cAt^cro, 


KapSouAa, 


,, KapSta. 


AaAouAa, 


„ XdXrjjxa. 


/3pvcrov\a } 


„ /3pV(Tl<S. 



No man with an ear will deny that in these cases, — and 
they are abundant enough to give a marked character to 
the modern dialect, — the classical type of the word has 
been corrupted into a decided improvement. A similar 
euphony strikes the ear in the words with the less com- 
mon termination ovSa, as in dpKovBa and KdXiaicovha. The 
same favourite diphthong appears in (Bpovrovve for fipovrwai,, 



156 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

in &vve for &<n, and others of the same kind, which may 
be picked out of the Klephtic ballads. The ranks of the 
same diphthong are further swelled by desertions from 
the ancient v and <o, as in 



(^OUCTKOl'to, 


from 


(f>V(TKO(l). 


KOvSoVVlOV, 


5J 


KtoStoV. 


f3povx££<», 


J? 


ft^X w - 


(TKOV^(J) } 


53 


(TKV^O). 


CTKovf3a\ov, 


3? 


(TKVj3a\0V) 



and others. 

Nor is the sonorous sound of a, according to Dionysius 
the most musical of the vowels, but which the English 
in many cases degrade into the feeble rank of rj (Scotch), 
less prominent in the modern than in the ancient dialect. 
On the contrary, many beautiful new substantive forms 
are used with a marked preference to which this rich 
vowel gives the key-note, as in 

o-yjfiaSi, for arjfxeiov. 

(TKOTaSt, , , ctkotos. 

7TOTa/U, ,, 7TOTa/x6<S. 

evfxop(fid8a : ,, evfxopcfud. 

vocrTi/xaSa, ,, vocrTtLioTrjs. 

cfypovr) fxdSa^ „ <f>povr)Lia. 

With the troop of favourite diminutives in dpi and dia. 

And I must say, generally, that in reading through the 
Erotocritus, I was more struck by the predominance of 
these two rich musical sounds of a and ou, than by any 
offensive accumulation of itacised syllables ; and both in 
that poem and in the Klephtic ballads, my ear not seldom 
rested on lines of a full and masculine melody, not in- 
ferior to the best in Homer. Thus we read — 

'OXrjLiepovXa TroXefxa, to (3pdBv KapaovXi. 
" All day we fight, and all the night we waste in sleepless watches." 

And 

2kotov€4 tovs ' Ayaprjvovs Tre^ovpa kou Ka/3dXo. 
" He mows them doivn, the Agarenes, both foot and horse he mows them." 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 157 

And again, 

HoXXrj pavptXXa e^erou, pavprj crdv KaXtaKovSi. 

11 A blackness siveeps across the plain, black as a troop of ravens." 1 

And what can be more vigorous and powerful, so far as 
sound is concerned, than the following lines from the 
Erotocritus, describing the impatient steeds at a battle, 
eager to start at the first blast of the trumpet ? 

Ktvttovv rd 7r68ta rovs (rrrjv yyjv, rrjv (TKovq duacr-qKovovv, 
To rpe^tfjLov dva^qrovv, dcfrpt^ovv, Kal Sptpwvovv. 

*H yXwcra-a pe to crropa tovs irai^.i to ^aXivapi, 
ToVa Kal t' aAAo dypLevero, crdv Kavet to Xtovrdpt. 

TdpOovvta tovs KairvL^ovcri) o~v^vd t d<^rid craXcvovv, 
Kai vd Kivr\yovv (iid^ovrai, vd Tpe^ovcrt, yvpevovv. 

Or, again, take the beautiful little %e/uSoWyita, or swallow 
song to welcome the spring, from Kind's collection — 

e O 'A7rpiXr]s 6 yXvKvs ecfaOave, Sev Vat paKpvd' 
To, irovXaKia KeXaSovv, rd SevSpaKta cfryXXavOovv, 
Ta opvidta vd yevvovv ap-^qcrav Kal vd kXoxtctovv, 
Ta KOTrdSta dp^LVOvv v' dva/Satvovv 's Ta /3ovvd, 
Ta Kai^iKia vd TrrjSovv Kal vd rpwyovv rd /<AaSia. 2 

So that, upon a broad practical estimate of the whole, I 
scarcely think any impartial person, who has taken the 
trouble to train his ear to the euphony of language (which 
I am sorry to see even great scholars don't always do), 
will pass any other verdict than this, that the old lan- 
guage of Homer, and Plato, and Demosthenes, whatever 
amputations and transmutations it may have suffered in 
the course of centuries, remains still among the organs of 
human expression one of the most vigorous and the most 
harmonious ; as a magnificent tree with full luxuriant 
leafage may bear much lopping, and still remain very 
beautiful. 

1 Passow : Popularia Carmina Grcecorum, ix. 2, lxxxii. 12, xcvi. 6. 

2 Kind : NeugriecMsche Antliologle, p. 72. Leipzig, 1847. 



158 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

Proposition xxviii. — In connexion with the ortho- 
epy of the existing Greek language, one or two other 
points deserve mention. The first is that the present 
race, while allowing the spiritus asper to drop, have 
shown no tendency to narrow the sphere of that conson- 
antal aspiration so favoured by their ancestors, but have 
rather increased it. For not only do $, %, yjr } and 6 re- 
main with their full aspirated force in the words which 
originally had them, but many words which had a slender 
consonant in classical usage, now regularly receive an 
aspirate. This specially happens where two slender con- 
sonants come together, in which case, in the modern 
practice, the former is always aspirated ; thus, 



For kAott^s, 


they say 


K\e(fiT7]<5. 


/3\aTTT(ti, 


j) 


/3\d<j)T(D. 


TriVTCU, 


>) 


7T€<£t(D. 


StLKVVJJLl, 


)) 


Seixvto. 


TTTCO^OS, 


j> 


t^Tto^o?. 


7TT6/DVy€S, 


)j 


<f>Tepovyes. 


pLTTTU), 


j) 


ptyyta. 


paTTTO), 


5J 


pd<f>T(o. 


aTTTOfxai^ 


J5 


a.(f>T(i). 


TTTaio), 


n 


<£tcu'(o. 



And many more. The same tendency to aspiration — 
closely connected with the sibilation so common in classi- 
cal Greek — has led to the lisping of every 8, and the 
softening of ft into our English v, which often produces a 
very pleasant effect, as when voolomw, the Romaic pro- 
nunciation of PovXofjbcu is compared with the rude and 
canine English boulomai. And if the modern Greek has 
shown no objection to the classical aspirates, as little has 
he felt inclined to soften down the masculine f — a:? — after 
the fashion of the Italians, into a double sibilant. Be- 
sides retaining the ancient f in all cases where it existed, 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 159 

he has new created a large class of compound verbs with 
Ik or ef, of which the characteristic is, that the initial 
vowel is omitted or transposed, so that etc becomes fe, and 
the word appears commencing with the double consonant. 
Of this class the following are characteristic examples : — 



£<xya7ra> 3 


to cease loving — grow cool. 


£oLKOV(TTO(rVV7], 


celebrity. 


£a.(TTepia, 


clear starry brightness. 


gafayyapia, 


rnoonlessness. 


^€/3dTTT(i), 


to take out the colour. 


^ejSovWovo), 


to unseal. 


£e8ovTi£(0, 


to draw teeth. 


^eKapSi^o), 


to dishearten. 


^eKapcji6v(n i 


to take out nails. 


£ep.av6dvu), 


to unlearn. 


£e/jLva\il<j) } 


to put one's brain out of shape — madden 


^ecnraOovo), 


to draw the sword. 


£€Tpaxn\t£<o, 


to break one's neck. 


^e^vxeo), 


to give up the ghost. 


£y]fxep6vei, 


the day breaks. 



Proposition xxix. — In the above analysis I have 
made no allusion to one element of corruption, which 
from the analogy of Italian one might expect to find in 
the modern Greek dialect. I mean the element of adul- 
teration from foreign sources. In the purest modern 
languages, as in German, for instance, this adulteration 
is considerable, and, except on a principle of pedantic 
purism, to which utility and good taste are equally 
opposed, could not be dispensed with. But it is different 
with Greek. For not only do all nations borrow their 
scientific terminology from the language of Aristotle and 
Hippocrates, while the language of these great master- 
builders of early science borrows from no one, but the 
foreign elements which at different periods crept into use 
as part of the current Hellenic, did so only by way of 



160 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

external attachment, so to speak, not by way of inocula- 
tion ; they did not infuse themselves into the blood, or, 
to use a legal simile, they were not fixtures. And thus it 
came to pass, that with the change of masters one adopted 
element was readily thrown off, and another as readily 
assumed, and as loosely retained. The colloquial style of 
the Byzantine Greeks thus became superficially Latinized, 
or spotted rather with Latim'srns ; that of the Frankish 
chroniclers included a sprinkling of French words ; that 
of the Cretans flirted with Italian; while that of the 
Acarnanian, Thessalian, and Epirotic Klephts was forced, 
for the sake of convenience, to tolerate a certain admix- 
ture of the Turkish element, which their most deeply 
rooted principles and their most powerful associations 
would have led them to reject. But the number of 
these foreign words was at no time considerable ; and as 
one immediate result of the grand national resurrection 
in 1821, the unseemly crusts and blotches of this foreign 
accretion instantly fell off like the scurf of a cutaneous 
disease, and the pure Hellenic came out of the caldron of 
a barbarous broth as clean and bright, and pure from all 
stain, as the god-like Ulysses out of his bath. In the 
current Greek newspapers which present the language 
in its ultimate type, not one of those Latin, Italian, Alba- 
nian, and Turkish words is to be found, which raise a not 
unfrequent stumblingblock in the way of the student of 
mediaeval and Venetian Greek ; much less do those 
hybrid compounds occur which bristle in Theodorus, made 
by the addition of the Latin terminations drcop, and dros, 
and dpios, to a Greek root. 1 At the present time, a little 
girl in the street, if you ask for a flower by the Albanian 

1 Of this barbarism, the name of an dato — blach-heartcd, is a familiar ex- 
illustrious Fanariot family, Maurocor- ample. 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 161 

word XovKovhi, may surprise you by saying that you must 
say avOos ; and if you wish a boat to shoot across from the 
Piraeus to iEgina, you may find that you have to ask in 
Thucydidean phrase for a \e/z/3o?, and not for a barchetta. 

Proposition xxx. — With regard to the materials of 
which the modern dialect consists, as well as the phy- 
siognomy which it presents, a question has been raised, in 
how far it represents any of the ancient dialects, Doric, 
Ionic, or iEolic ; for Attic it certainly is not. Now, it 
seems quite plain that, looking at the conditions of the 
case, nothing would have been more strange than that 
some considerable traces of these non- Attic varieties of 
Greek speech should not have presented themselves in 
the modern new formation. For Attic, we ought to 
remember, was a dialect originally confined to a compara- 
tively small portion of the Greek-speaking population ; 
and the breadth of space which it afterwards occupied 
was a purely literary phenomenon, leaving untouched the 
great popular substratum of a distinctly diverse-featured 
speech, spread out in large reaches of country from Tamarus 
to Trebizond. Byzantium specially, the centre of non- Attic 
Hellenism in later days, was a Doric colony ; in Africa, 
neither Alexandria nor Gyrene could lay any claim to a 
native Atticism ; and on the sunny shores of Asia Minor, 
as well as the bright isles of the iEgean, Doric, iEolic, or 
Ionic varieties of Greek speech were everywhere at home. 1 

1 How much of the peculiarities of words used in the Septuagint, though 

the Alexandrian Greek has passed, either unknown to Attic Greek, are found in 

directly, or through the influence of the Polybius, Herodotus, and Diodorus, as 

Church and the Alexandrian translation Schleusner, and other Biblical lexico- 

of the Old Testament, into modern graphers, have been careful to note. 

Greek, the student of the Septuagint The Biblical Greek which issued from 

will readily convince himself. It is Alexandria is, in fact, a sort of half-way 

notable also, that not a few of the rare house between Attic Greek and Romaic; 



162 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTEB OF 

Now, in what proportions these local peculiarities might 
mix themselves up in a new dialect to be formed after the 
long and disturbed action of centuries, so as to serve for 
a common medium of understanding, no man could dare 
to prophesy ; but that the traces of their existence should 
appear in some shape and to some extent, seemed certain. 
And so, in fact, it has proved. Putting out of view the 
local dialect of the Tzacones 1 in Eastern Laconia, as some- 
thing isolated and deserving special consideration, the 
general dialect of the modern Greek, from the Byzantine 
lingo of Ptochoprodromus to the Cretan of Cornaro, and 
the Epirotic of the Klephtic ballads, certainly does present 
certain features of an ^Eolo-Doric physiognomy. - Of this 
the dominance of the broad vowel a, not only in the nomi- 
native of all masculine agents, as above mentioned (p. 144), 
but in a large class of verbs, as in gfyra for ^rel, fierpa for 
fierpei, fofiaTai for fofieircu, is in itself sufficient evidence. 
But besides this, we have the well-known Doric peculiarity 
of forming all verbs whose future is in f from a present in 
f instead of a double a, according to the Attic usage ; 
thus, instead of rdao-o) we have rdfa ; 2 and in this way has 
been formed a large class of modern verbs, as, (jxovdfa 
(fxovagco, </>oftepi£a> (poftepigcD, rpofAafo rpofid^co. Of ^Eolism, 
the accusative plural of the first declension in ai instead 
of a, as Movants for Movo-a?, is a familiar example. On the 
other hand, it is not to be denied that there are some 
traces of Ionic also in modern Greek, as in the conversion 

and in this view it is certain that a fies with the Caucones of the ancient 
familiarity with the living dialect of topographers, see Mullach, Grammar, 
Greece would be of more value to our p. 94, and Das Tzalconische von Pro- 
young theologians than many of the fessor Moriz Schmidt in Studien zur 
branches of philology which at present Griechischen und Lateinischen Gram- 
occupy bheir attention. motile, herausgegeben von Georg Curt'ws, 

1 On the peculiarities of the dialect voL iii. p. 347. 

of the Tzacones, which Mullach identi- 2 Ahrens, De Dialecto Dorica. 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 163 

of o or co into ov, and the use of the slender rj for the 
broad a in certain adjectives in po? ; but I have not been 
able from my observation to confirm the strong remark of 
the late Viscount Strangford on this point — one of the 
best authorities no doubt — to the effect that " it would 
be easy to show two Ionisms for one iEolism or Dorism 
in modern Greek." 1 

A kindred point to this dialectic physiognomy of the 
modern tongue is brought out by the occurrence in it of 
certain words, or forms of words, which anciently were 
confined to poetic usage, but have now passed into general 
circulation. The following is a short list of this type 
which 1 have collected : — 



criyaAos, 


(Pindar). 


Pp°xo, 


for v€tos. 


o/^aria, 


opLpLCLTa, Homer, for 6(f)6a\p,6s, 


rpiKVfiia, 


storm at sea, for Xalkaxf. 


VOOTl/XO?, 


for Ttpirvos. 


KTV7rao), 


eo>, Horn., for tvttto). 


KTipiOV, 


Kreap, Horn., for KTyjpia. 


apfieva, 


tackling, rigging, for 6VAa. 


Ai/3aSiov, 


from Ai/?as, for Aei/zcov. 


Spocrepos, 


for r)8vs. 


rdx'-vos, 


(Callim.), for raxvs. 


atdovcra, 


a hall. 



The transference of such words from poetical into com- 
mon usage is not a phenomenon that need excite any 
surprise. The popularity of a great national poet, or the 
affectation of some fashionable writer, may readily achieve 
this ; but we must bear in mind also, that what we would 
justly mark as poetic in an Attic writer may, in some of 
the widely scattered provinces occupied by the Greek race, 
have been a word which was generally current in the mouth 
of the people. That Homer himself, as being a popular 

1 On Cretan and Modern Greek, in the Appendix to Captain Spratt's Travels 
in Crete, vol. i. 



164 ON THE PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 

minstrel, addressed the inhabitants of the eastern shores 
of the iEgean, to which country he belonged, not in a 
peculiarly and distinctly marked so-called poetical style, 
but, like our own Burns, in a language familiar to the 
common people, we cannot for a moment doubt ; and in 
this view any Homeric element in the existing Romaic 
may have come down by direct descent from the pre- 
Homeric popular dialect, not by degradation from the 
peculiar poetic and epic style used by literary Greece. 

Proposition xxxi. — In conclusion, it seems not im- 
proper, in the case of a famous language of such remarkable 
longevity, to cast an eye into the future, and calculate 
the chances of its permanence. And in this divination 
past experience certainly entitles us to say with confi- 
dence, that a language which has survived so many 
changes, and resisted such a succession of destructive 
forces, will maintain its vitality unimpaired, so long as the 
moral motive power of the world is mainly Christian, and 
the science of the world is proud to root itself in Greek 
traditions. For whether the present little Greek king- 
dom shall have strength enough to grow into an indepen- 
dent political integer, or whether, which seems its more 
probable destiny, it shall at no distant day be attached 
to the great Russian Empire in the manner of an outlying 
principality, as Cymric Wales was attached to Saxon 
England, it does not appear that it will have to contend 
with any disintegrating or exterminating force in any way 
so strong as those which it successfully resisted when 
under Turkish and Venetian supremacy. The conserva- 
tive force of the Welsh language in the south-western 
corner of our insular triangle is a fact of such potency, as 
to have been deemed worthy of special notice and wise 



THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 165 

concession by our administrative council in London j 1 but 
if Cymric, which is no doubt as old a language as Greek, 
with its scanty stores of literary tradition, still flourishes 
in a green old age, the extinction of Greek, with its im- 
mense momentum of intellectual and moral force, not less 
intense in kind than extensive in operation, is not a thing 
to be looked for within any assignable period. If the 
Greek kingdom should unfortunately not be able to main- 
tain its position against the combination of internal faction 
and external aggression, which may at any moment break 
it up, there is nothing in the antecedents of any of the 
great powers into whose hands a dismembered Greece 
might fall, to warrant the apprehension that they would 
employ any severe measures for the purpose of stamping 
out the national language. Russia certainly, which in 
religion is full sister to Greece, would have neither desire 
nor interest to look upon the language of Athens with the 
same jealousy that she looks on that of Warsaw. Under 
Russia the Greeks might readily become the founders of 
an enlightened Broad Church party in that country, just 
as under the Turks they became first the necessary inter- 
preters, and then the wise governors of great and impor- 
tant provinces. As for the form in which it seems most 
desirable that this noble language should be transmitted 
to distant ages, it seems necessary, on the one hand, to 
warn against any forced and affected recurrence to the 
classical type, and on the other to invite literary men to 
the culture of the popular dialect as the fittest for a cer- 

1 In the winter of 1872 a representa- respect to the representation in future, 
tion was made to the British Govern- in so far as it might be possible to do so 
ment on the evils arising from the with a due regard to the legal know- 
appointment to judicial situations in ledge of the persons appointed, i.e. that 
Wales of barristers unacquainted with a Welsh-speaking barrister should in 
the language of the natives ; and the future be preferred, if his abilities and 
Government pledged themselves to have learning were equal. 



166 PHILOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF MODERN GREEK. 

tain style of lyrical and essentially popular poetry. As 
in Scotland the language of popular song runs in its own 
channel, apart from the English used as a general literary 
medium, so the Greek of Coraes and the newspapers 
might still continue to occupy a middle place between the 
Greek of classic tradition and the Greek of the popular 
ballads. Variety was one of the distinguishing features 
of the Greek family of languages from the beginning, and 
it may well remain so to the end. Whether or not the 
course of affairs shall ever be so ordered by Divine 
Providence, as that, according to the pious aspirations of 
Monsieur d'Eichthal, and other eminent French Hellenists, 
it may at no distant period be prepared to take the place 
of Latin as a catholic medium of correspondence between 
cultivated men of all countries, it seems in vain to specu- 
late ; but, in the form that it has now assumed, and in all 
likelihood will maintain for centuries, there is no reason 
why it should not be much more extensively studied by 
all classes than at any previous period. When our 
classical scholars shall have become ashamed of their false 
methods and narrow prejudices, and when a succession of 
intelligent travellers shall have been practically convinced 
that it is as easy to learn Greek in Athens, as to learn 
German in Berlin, or French in Paris, the sons or grand- 
sons of Monsieur d'Eichthal and his French associates 
may behold with joy the probable advent of that kingdom 
of Pan-Hellenic brotherhood of which it is now only per- 
mitted to dream. 



ON SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN THE INTERPRETA- 
TION OF POPULAR MYTHS, WITH SPECIAL 
REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 

Of all the branches of interesting and curious learning, 
there is none which has been so systematically neglected 
in this country as mythology — a subject closely connected 
both with theology and philosophy, and on which those 
grand intellectual pioneers and architects, the Germans, 
have expended such a vast amount of profitable and un- 
profitable labour. The consequence of this neglect has 
been, that of the few British books we have on the sub- 
ject, the most noticeable are not free from the dear seduc- 
tion of favourite ideas, which possess the minds of the 
writers as by a juggling witchcraft, and prevent them 
from looking on a rich and various subject with that 
many-sided sympathy and catholic receptiveness which it 
requires. In fact, some of our most recent writers on 
this subject have not advanced a single step, in respect 
of scientific method, beyond Jacob Bryant, unquestionably 
the most learned and original speculator on mythology of 
the last century ; but whose great work, nevertheless, can 
only be compared to a grand chase in the dark, with a 
few bright flashes of discovery, and happy gleams of sug- 
gestion by the way. For these reasons, and to make a 
necessary protest against some ingenious aberrations of 



168 ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS, WITH 



Max Miiller, Gladstone, Inman, and Cox in the method 
of mythological interpretation, I have undertaken the 
present paper; which, if it possess only the negative 
virtue of warning people to be sober-minded and cautious 
when entering on a path of so slippery inquiry, cannot be 
deemed impertinent at the present moment. 

For the sake of distinctness and compactness, I shall 
state what I have to say in a series of articulate proposi- 
tions. 

Proposition i. — By the mythology of a people I under- 
stand the general body of their traditions, handing down 
from the earliest times the favourite national ideas and 
memories, in a narrative form, calculated to delight the 
imagination and stimulate the affections of love and 
reverence. 

Prop. ii. — The dress of all mythology, as appealing to 
the imagination, is necessarily poetical ; the contents of 
it are generally fourfold — (1.) Theological; (2.) Physical; 
(3.) Historical ; and (4.) Philosophical and Moral. 

Prop. iij. — In the theological and moral myth, the idea 
is the principal thing, the narrative only the medium ; in 
the historical and physical myth the fact is the principal 
thing ; what goes beyond the fact is mere scenic decora- 
tion or imaginative exaggeration. 1 

Prop, iv.— A myth intended to convey an idea is dis- 
tinguished from an allegory or parable by the consciousness 

1 Sometimes, however, a historical the person is really a secondary con- 
person, like Faust, may be seized on by sideration : a real person he remains, 
the people, merely as a convenient no doubt ; but, for a legendary nucleus, 
vehicle for embodying a floating mass any other person would have done as 
of mythological notions. In this case well. 



SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 169 

of purpose with which allegories and parables strictly so 
called are put forth and received. 

Prop. v. — As it has been well said of popular proverbs, 
that they are the wisdom of many and the wit of one, so 
theological and moral myths grew up in the popular 
imagination, and were nursed there till in happy season 
they received a definite shape from some one representa- 
tive man, whose inspiration led him to express in a 
striking form what all felt to be true and all were willing 
to believe. 

Prop. vi. — The first framers of myths were, no doubt, 
perfectly aware of the real significance of these imagina- 
tive pictures ; but they were aware as poets, not as 
analysts. It is not, therefore, necessary to suppose that 
in framing their legends they proceeded with the full 
consciousness which belongs to the framers of fables, 
allegories, and parables. A myth is always a gradual, 
half-conscious, half-unconscious growth ; a parable is the 
conscious creation of the moment. 

Prop. vii. — During a certain early stage of national 
life, which cannot be accurately defined, but which always 
precedes the creation of a regular written literature, the 
popular myth, like a tree or a plant, becomes subject to 
a process of growth and expansion, in the course of which 
it not only receives a rich embellishment, but may be so 
transformed by the vivid action of a fertile imagination, 
and by the ingrafting of new elements, that its original 
intention may be altogether obscured and forgotten. 
How far this first significance may in after times be 
rightly apprehended depends partly on the degree of its 



170 ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS, WITH 

original obviousness, partly on the amount of kindred 
culture possessed by the persons to whom it is addressed. 

Prop. viii. — As of essentially popular origin and 
growth the myth cannot, in the proper sense, be said to 
have been the creation of any poet, however distinguished. 
Much less could a popular minstrel, like Homer, using a 
highly polished language, and who manifestly had many 
predecessors, be said to have either created the characters 
or invented the legends about the Greek gods, which 
form what the critics of the last century used to call the 
machinery of his poems. In regard to theological myths, 
which are most deeply rooted in the popular faith, such a 
poet as Homer could only turn to the best account the 
materials already existing, with here and there a little 
embellishment or expansion, where there was no danger 
pi contradicting any article of the received imaginative 
creed. 

Prop. ix. — The two most powerful forces which act on 
the popular mind, when engaged in the process of form- 
ing myths, are the physical forces of external nature, and 
the more hidden, though fundamentally more awful 
powers of the human will, intellect, and passions. It is 
to be presumed, therefore, that all popular myths will 
contain imaginative representations of both these powers ; 
and, in their original shape, they are in fact nothing more 
than the assertion of the existence of these two great 
classes of forces in a form which speaks to the imagina- 
tion — that is, in the form of personality ; and there will be 
a natural presumption against the adopting of any system 
of mythological interpretation which ignores entirely 
either the one or the other of these elements. If this 



SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 171 

proposition be correct, the objections of Max Muller 
(Chips, ii. 156) to the Greek derivation of'Epivvs, from 
the old Arcadian epivvvew (Pausan. viii. 25, 26), are un- 
founded. 

Prop. x. — The most fertile soil for purely theological 
myths is polytheism ; and the most obvious as well as the 
largest field for a religion of multiform personalities is 
external nature. In the interpretation of such myths, 
therefore, we shall be justified in searching primarily for 
the great forces and phenomena of the physical world, as 
underlying the imaginative narrative and imparting to it 
its true significance ; and in proportion to the prominence 
of these phenomena, and the potency of these forces, will 
the probability be that we shall find them fully repre- 
sented in any body of polytheistic theology. 

Prop, xi. — As the essence of polytheism thus consists 
in the habitual elevation of what we call physical facts 
and forces into divine personalities, the line betwixt a 
purely physical myth and a theological myth will naturally 
be extremely difficult to draw. Zeus, for instance, as the 
Thunderer, represents a physical fact as well as a theolo- 
gical doctrine : nevertheless, it would be wrong to assume 
that there is no such element in tradition as a strictly 
jDhysical myth. Certain striking facts of volcanic action 
or geological change, strange and grotesque shapes of rocks 
and other natural objects, unusual conformations of land- 
scape, not to mention the occasional discovery of gigantic 
fossil bones, and even entire skeletons of animals no longer 
existing, might well form the basis of what is properly 
termed a physical or a geological, rather than a theological 
myth; and, as Hartung well remarks (Gr. Myth. i. 168), 



172 ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS, WITH 

notable recurrent events in nature, such as the heavy 
rains at the end of summer, are peculiarly calculated to 
impress the popular imagination, and to produce myths. 

Prop. xii. — But as to man there is, after all, nothing 
more interesting and more important than man, it is in 
the highest degree unreasonable, in the interpretation of 
myths, to proceed on the assumption that all myth is idea, 
and that no myth contains any historical element. It may 
be true, no doubt, that in the case of some particular 
nation all action of the popular imagination on human 
personalities has been excluded; but such a one-sided 
action is not to be presumed ; it must be proved ; and 
that in such a rich and various mythology as the Greek 
all reference to human characters and human exploits 
should be systematically excluded is in the highest degree 
improbable. In a country where the gods descended so 
easily into humanity, it were strange if men had not occa- 
sionally ascended into godhood. 

Prop. xiii. — In a theology so thoroughly anthropomor- 
phic as the Greek, the distinction between the divine and 
human element will sometimes be difficult to trace ; for 
the same feelings, situations, and actions will necessarily 
belong to human gods and to godlike men. But this 
state of the case, in the interpretation of any particular 
myth, is a ground for doubt, not for dogmatism. It in- 
cludes the possibility or the probability of one of two 
explanations, but the certainty of neither. 

Prop. xiv. — The incredible exaggerations or embel- 
lishments with which the name of any national hero may 
have been handed down in a popular myth afford no pre- 



SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 173 

sumption against the genuine historical character of its 
nucleus. On the contrary, it is just because extraordinary 
characters have existed that extraordinary and incredible, 
miraculous and even impossible stories are invented about 
them. A plain, sober, critical, matter-of-fact account of 
its early popular heroes is not to be expected from any 
people. 

Prop. xv. — The error of certain ancient rationalizing 
interpreters of the Greek myths did not consist in presum- 
ing historical fact as the nucleus of some myths, but in 
the indiscriminate application of the historical interpreta- 
tion to all myths, and that often in a very prosaic and 
altogether tasteless way. 

Prop. xvi. — The error of certain modern idealizing 
interpreters of the Greek mythology does not consist in 
endeavouring to recover the ideas which originally lay at 
the root of some myths, the full significance of which had 
been lost so early as Homer, but in the partial and one- 
sided application of a few favourite ideas to all physical 
facts, and in the broad denial of any historical elements 
underlying any personality of early tradition. 

Prop. xvii. — Among the ancients the extreme of the 
rationalizing interpretation of the Greek theological myths 
is what may be called the irreligious, godless, and alto- 
gether prosaic system of Euhemerus (b.c. 300), who wrote 
a book to prove that all the Greek gods, not even except- 
ing Jove, had been originally dead men deified. The 
error of this system consisted, not in the assertion that 
the elevation of extraordinary human characters to a divine 
rank with religious honour after death is an element trace- 



174 ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS, WITH 

able in the Hellenic, as in some other popular theologies, 
bnt in the wholesale declaration that religious worship 
had no other origin, and that this element, which is 
always secondary and derivative in the popular creed, is 
primitive and exclusive. 

Prop, xviii. — In order to ascertain how far the prin- 
ciple of Euhemerus may apply to any particular case, the 
general religious tendencies and habits of the nation or 
people must be considered in the first place, and then the 
whole circumstances and features of the mythical narra- 
tive must be accurately surveyed and carefully weighed, 
and a separation of the canonized man from the deified 
nature element with which he may have been mixed up, 
made accordingly. 

Prop. xix. — Euhemerus, however, was altogether 
wrong in supposing that this system of interpretation 
could be applied on any extensive scale to the mythical 
theology of the Greeks ; and the few French and English 
writers who, in the flatness of the last century, gave a 
limited currency to this idea, have found no followers in 
the present. 

Prop. xx. — An opposite theory to that of Euhemerus, 
much in fashion with the Germans, is, that whereas he 
said the gods were elevated men, we ought rather to say 
that many men, perhaps all the heroes of legendary story, 
are degraded gods. That in the course of religious deve- 
lopment, especially when mixed up with great changes in 
the political relations of different races, such a degrada- 
tion may have taken place, is certain ; that it has taken 
place in certain special cases will be a just conclusion from 



SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 175 

an analysis of the character and worship of certain heroes, 
when a cumulative view of the myths connected with 
them suggests the theory of a divine rather than a human 
significance ; but there is no scientific warrant for the 
assertion which it is now the fashion to make (Baring 
Gould on Religious Belief, vol. i. p. 167), that the old heroic 
names of a country, as King Arthur, for instance, are in 
the mass to be treated as degraded gods. 

Prop. xxi. — The best authorities for the facts of a 
myth are not always the poets, nor even the most ancient 
poets, as Homer, who in the exercise of their art often 
take large liberties with sacred tradition; but the reliable 
witnesses are rather such as Pausanias, who record the 
old temple lore in its fixed local forms. This distinction, 
often forgotten, has given rise to not a little confusion, 
and created some needless difficulty in mythological inter- 
pretation; and Hartung (i. 184) has done important 
service to comparative mythology by drawing attention 
emphatically to the difference between sacred legends 
as believed by the people, and religious myths freely 
handled by the poets. 

Prop. xxii. — In the interpretation of any popular 
myth, the first thing to be done is to ascertain carefully 
what the thing to be interpreted actually is ; and this 
can only be done by collecting all the facts relating to it, 
working them up into a complete, and if possible consis- 
tent picture, and not till then attempting an explanation. 
Now, as the facts relating to any single god, let us say in 
the Greek Pantheon, are scattered over a wide space, and 
come from various sources, to attempt the explanation of 
these facts without the previous labour of critical and 



176 ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS, WITH 

well-digested scholarship, may be an ingenious amusement, 
but never can be a scientific procedure. All the facts 
must be collected, and all the criticisms weighed, before 
a verdict can be pronounced. 

Prop, xxiii. — But the mere collection of facts will 
never help a prosaic or an irreverent man to the interpre- 
tation of what is essentially poetic and devout. A book 
supplies what must be read; but the eye that reads it 
can see only what by natural faculty and training it is 
fitted to see. As the loving and reverential contempla- 
tion of nature was the original source of the polytheistic 
myths, so the key to them will often be recovered by a 
kindred mind acting under influences similar to those 
which impressed the original framers of the myth ; and if 
this may be done with a considerable amount of success 
by a poetical mind, acted on by nature in any country, 
much more will such success be achieved by such a mind 
in the country where the myths were originally formed. 
But as the aspects of nature are various, and the fancies 
of poetic minds no less so, it will always be necessary to 
verify any modern notion of an ancient deity thus acquired, 
by confronting it accurately and continuously with the 
traditional materials contained in books and works of art. 
Highly poetical minds, such as Shelley, Keats, and Buskin, 
when dealing with Greek mythology, without the constant 
correction of accurate scholarship, are not seldom found 
using Greek myths to represent modern ideas, rather than 
human ideas to interpret Greek myths. And the example 
of the Germans proves, that in minds naturally fertile and 
ingenious, no amount of erudition affords a safeguard against 
the besetting sin of mythological interpreters, to find in 
^11 myths a select field and enclosed hunting-ground for 



SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 177 

the pleasant disport of an unfettered imagination. Dis- 
coveries are easy to make in a region where plausibility 
so readily gains currency as proof. 

Prop. xxiv. — An important aid in the interpretation 
of myths will often be supplied by the etymology of the 
names of the mythological personages ; and in this way 
new deities will sometimes be found to have arisen from 
the mere epithets of old ones, as Jacob Bryant saw clearly 
nearly 100 years ago ; nay, even magnificent myths may 
at times be traced to no more sublime origin than a false 
etymology which had taken possession of the popular ear. 
The significance of divine names must, of course, be 
sought in the first place in the language to which the 
mythology belongs ; but in applying this test, with the 
view of obtaining any scientific result, great care must be 
taken to avoid treating doubtful etymologies in the same 
way that certain ones may be treated. For where the 
etymology is uncertain, that is, does not shine out plainly 
from the face of the word (as in the case of the Harpies in 
Hesiod), then the elements of doubt are often so many, 
that it is wiser to abstain altogether from this aid, than to 
attempt founding any serious conclusions upon it. For, 
in the first place, we may not have the word in its original 
form ; and, in the second place, two or three etymologies 
may be equally probable. The best etymologies, what- 
ever theorists pleasantly possessed with one idea may say 
to the contrary, are only accessories of mythological inter- 
pretation, not the chief corner-stone. 

Prop. xxv. — If the mythological names have no sig- 
nificance in the language to which they belong, then 
recourse may be had to cognate languages ; and in the 

M 



178 ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS, WITH 

case of European tongues, with propriety to the Eastern 
sources from which they are demonstrably derived. But 
here a double caution is necessary ; for accidental resem- 
blances may be found in all languages, and extensive 
learning, coupled with a vivid imagination, may readily 
supply the most plausible foreign derivations, which are 
merely fanciful. 

Prop. xxvi. — By referring to another, and it may be 
a more primitive and ancient language, for the etymo- 
logical key to a religious myth of any people, we are 
treading on historical ground extrinsic to the people with 
whose myths we may be dealing. For comparative philo- 
logy, like archaeology, recovers the earliest history of a 
people before writing was known ; and this raises the 
inquiry, whether a mythology which bears a foreign no- 
menclature on its face may not convey foreign ideas in its 
soul — that is, to take an example, whether the Greek 
mythology, if the names of its personages are more readily 
explained in Hebrew or Sanscrit than in Greek, may not, 
in respect of its ideas and legends, be more properly inter- 
preted from original Hebrew or Sanscrit than from native 
Greek sources ? And may we not hope, in this way, in 
the Hebrew Scriptures, or the Sanscrit Vedas perhaps, to 
put our fingers on the ancient germs of those anthropo- 
morphic myths which Homer and Hesiod present to us in 
adult completeness and full panoply ? and thus the highest 
end of scientific research will be obtained, not only to 
dissect the flower, but to trace it to the seed, and follow 
it through every stage of its rich and beautiful meta- 
morphosis. 

Prop, xxvii. — The prospect thus held out of tracing 



SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 179 

famous European religious myths to their far home in the 
East is extremely inviting. 1 It satisfies at once scientific 
minds by the promise of going to the root of a matter which 
has hitherto been treated superficially, and that not incon- 
siderable class of literary men and scholars who have a 
keener eye for an ingenious novelty than for a stable 
truth. When we bear in mind also the significance of the 
homely proverb, that " far birds have fair feathers," and 
the well-known fact, that every mother is apt to prefer 
her own bairn to others which may be more healthy and 
beautiful, we shall see reason to proceed, not without hope 
indeed, but with more than Scottish caution, in this 
Oriental adventure. There is a class of persons in the 
world who have a strange pleasure in travelling a thousand 
leagues to quarry out a truth which they might have 
picked up from beneath their nose. Against these 
seductions, therefore, in the first place, while prosecuting 
this foreign chase, we must be on our guard. We ought 
to know that we are hunting on very deceitful ground ; 
that we are dealing with a class of phenomena, that, 
like clouds and kaleidoscopic figures, are very apt to 
change their shape, not only by their own nature, but 
specially also according to the position of the observer ; 
and that the same nebulous conglomerate may at one 
moment look very like a whale, at another moment 
very like Lord Brougham, and at a third moment very 
like Olympian Jupiter. And in the prospect of such a 
possible ridiculous conclusion to the sublime adventure on 
which he is starting, every inquirer into the remote origin 
of European myths ought to take with him these 
cautions — 

1 " The whole theology of Greece was derived from the East." — Bryant, 
vol. i. p. 184. 



180 ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS, WITH 

(1.) That there is no necessity and no scientific war- 
rant for seeking a foreign explanation of deities, which 
already sufficiently explain themselves by the character 
which they bear, or the symbols which they exhibit in 
their own country. 

(2.) That the formative power by which myths were 
created, viz., the imagination, possesses a wonderful magic, 
in virtue of which the materials on which it acts, espe- 
cially with a quick and vivid people unfettered by formal 
creeds, are subjected to a perpetual process of transmuta- 
tion, which renders the recognition of the original identity 
of two diverging myths an extremely difficult and not 
seldom an altogether hopeless task. In this respect the 
recognition of the original identity of different words in 
cognate languages by comparative philology is a much 
more safe and scientific process than a similar recognition 
of the identity of different persons of two Pantheons 
through the shifting masks of comparative mythology. 

(3.) That the principal relations under which the great 
objects of nature, such as the sky, the sun, the sea, etc., 
may appear, when subjected to the process of imaginative 
impersonation, are in many cases so obvious that two 
different polytheistic peoples may easily hit upon them 
without any historical connexion. Even in the free ex- 
ercise of poetical talent in the case of individual poets of 
highly potentiated imagination, we constantly stumble on 
comparisons which have been made independently by 
other poets at other times or in distant countries, and 
which superficial critics are sometimes eager to fasten on 
as plagiarisms ; much more, in the vulgar exercise of the 
imagination, by the mass of the people on certain given 
natural objects may we expect frequent instances of 
coincidence without connexion. This consideration will 



SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 181 

restrain a prudent investigator in this department from 
building any theory of foreign origin of myths on a few 
points of natural similarity. 

Taking these cautions along with us, we now observe, 
in reference to the probable Eastern origin of certain 
Greek myths — 

Prop, xxviii. — That the borrowing of one nation from 
another in the province of mythological ideas, as in the 
case of philological materials, may take place in a twofold 
fashion, either in the way of original descent from a com- 
mon stock, far back in the cradle of the race, or by im- 
portation through the medium of commerce or great 
religious revolutions and invasions. Of these two methods 
of borrowing* it is impossible to say, a priori, which 
promises the greater amount of gain to the adventurous 
inquirer ; for, while the advantage of greater closeness 
belonging to the original identity of stock may be in a 
great measure neutralized by the distance of time and 
place, and the changes which they induce, the disadvan- 
tage of a more loose connexion which belongs to the 
foreign importer may be amply compensated by the firm 
hold which the commerce, and polity, and intelligence of 
a superior may take of an inferior people. 

Prop. xxix. — It must be borne in mind, also, that the 
recognition of a supposed identity between the gods of 
any two polytheistic peoples may easily take place with- 
out any real borrowing. For the desire of harmonizing 
and classifying discordant phenomena, which belongs to 
the very nature of intellectual action, is particularly dis- 
played in the field of popular religion — to such an extent, 
indeed, that it became a fixed habit of the Greek and 



182 ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS, WITH 

Roman mind to identify the deities of foreign countries 
with their own native deities by certain signs more or 
less superficial. The testimony of the Greeks, therefore, 
with regard to the supposed identity of certain personages 
in their Pantheon with certain gods or goddesses in the 
Egyptian or Phoenician, and their consequent foreign ex- 
traction, will require to be examined with the severest 
scrutiny. 

Prop. xxx. — In deriving any god from a foreign 
source, even though his foreign origin should appear in some 
respects perfectly certain, we must not conclude that all 
the phenomena which his person and character present 
are to be explained from abroad. Nothing is more 
natural than that he should be a compound god, one-half 
native and one-half foreign, or even a monstrous conglo- 
merate of many gods. 

Peop. xxxi. — Of all the foreign sources to which the 
Hellenic mythology has at different times been referred 
by the learned, Egypt is at once the most reputable and 
the least likely. For here we have neither original con- 
nexion by identity of stock, nor any such commercial or 
political action of the more ancient over the more modern 
people, as would lead to the importation of religious ideas. 
The ancient Greeks had a great respect, and a sort of 
awful reverence for the wisdom and the antiquity of the 
Egyptians ; but this respect and reverence was more 
likely to lead them, as in fact it often did, to the recog- 
nition of superficial resemblances (as in the case of Io and 
Isis) than to the trace of original identity. Modern re- 
searches have added nothing to the probability of the 
favourite notion of Bryant and Blackwell, that the prin- 



SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 183 

cipal persons and legends of Hellenic mythology came 
directly from the land of Ham. 

Prop, xxxii. — For the Hebrew origin of some of the 
Greek theological ideas — the darling notion of Church 
Fathers and Protestant theologians, and which has been 
recently revived by a statesman of distinguished character, 
talent, and erudition— there is even less to be said. For, 
in the first place, here we are comparing a polytheistic 
system with a monotheistic, where antagonism rather 
than similarity is to be looked for; the elements of 
original or superinduced connexion between the two 
peoples are altogether wanting ; and the original unity of 
the human family, which is the only link that binds the 
Greek to the Jew, is so remote that it requires no incon- 
siderable amount of hardihood to drag them into the 
arena of the present comparison. This hardihood, how- 
ever, has never been wanting ; and, besides its own 
virtue, has always found great favour with the religious 
public, which is pleased with nothing so much as the idea 
that everything good, beautiful, or excellent in any way 
that heathen religions may be allowed to possess must 
have come either from the Hebrew Scriptures directly, or 
from some more ancient source of primeval revelation. 
And no doubt there may be a certain truth in this view ; 
but it is a truth which affects the monotheistic element, 
that in the person of Zeus lies as the background of the 
Hellenic polytheism, rather than the polytheistic per- 
sonages to whom it has been applied. A consciousness 
of this truth led the early mythological interpreters of 
this school to apply the principle of Euhemerus largely 
to the Old Testament, in such a way only as to recognise 
the venerable Hebrew patriarchs under various masks of 
old Pelasgic gods or demigods. 



184 ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS, WITH 

Prop, xxxiii. — For the Phoenician influence on the 
formation of the early Greek theology there is much more 
to be said. We can, indeed, scarcely imagine a race of 
such distinguished merchants and navigators, commanding 
the Greek seas in the early ages of European civilisation, 
without supposing some such contagion and ingrafting of 
religious ideas, as the genius of polytheism was on all 
occasions prone to invite. We shall, therefore, be dis- 
posed to receive favourably any distinct proof, or even 
probable indication, of the derivation of Greek gods from 
a Phoenician source ; but we must bear in mind at the 
same time, that the Phoenicians were known to the Greeks 
as mere traders, with temporary settlements on the coast 
of the Mediterranean, and that their character, as ex- 
hibited in the Odyssey, was by no means possessed of 
such attractions as might aid to allure the Greeks to the 
adoption of any of their peculiar objects of worship. 

Pe,op. xxxiv. — The last source of Greek myths, for 
which a strong claim has recently been put forth by a 
German of distinguished talent, taste, and learning in this 
country, is Sanscrit. And here at last some people seem to 
think, that with all certainty we have got at the true source 
of the many- winding mythological Nile. But after looking 
into this matter with all possible care, and with no preju- 
dice whatever (for nothing would please me so much as to 
catch the infant Mercury in the bosom of a cloud, floating 
over the shining peak of the Hindu Kush, or to hook 
Proteus in one of his many forms at the mouth of the 
Ganges), I must honestly confess, that hitherto the inter- 
preters of Hellenic myths from Sanscrit roots and Vedic 
similes have inspired me rather with distrust than with 
confidence. The principal characters of the Hellenic Pan- 



SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 185 

theon tell their own story, to a poetical eye, more obviously 
and effectively than with the help of a Sanscrit root ; 
and those few of them which are more doubtful, such as 
Hermes and Athena, seem to be precisely those in which 
the Sanscritizing mythologers have most egregiously failed. 
I consider, therefore, that, while the Vedic mythology, 
preferably to any other polytheistic system, presents an 
ample field from which some of the Hellenic legends may 
be aptly illustrated, and a few, perhaps, correctly inter- 
preted, the attempt to explain the great and prominent 
phenomena of the Greek Pantheon, by an ingenious appli- 
cation of a few favourite physical ideas variously imper- 
sonated by the fancy of the Vedic poets, must be regarded 
in the meantime, at least, as a failure. 1 

Peop. xxxv. — Without, therefore, in the slightest 
degree wishing to throw discouragement on the delightful 
and interesting study of comparative mythology, — a study 
which promises the most fruitful results in the domain of 
theology and moral philosophy, — the procedure of exact 
science seems to demand that, before venturing on exten- 
sive excursions into foreign regions, we should, in the first 
place, carefully survey and exhaust our home domain — 
that is to say, that the Greek traditions with respect to 
their gods, interpreted by themselves, and the general 
principles of mythical interpretation laid down in the 
above propositions, afford a surer basis for this branch of 
mythological science than hints suggested by Oriental 
etymologies, or analogies from the Yedic hymns. And in 
order to make this more clear, I will select a few examples 

1 The interpretation of certain person- confirmed by the judicious sobriety of 

ages in the Greek Pantheon from sources our countryman Dr. Muir. See his 

of Sanscrit etymology, to which Max paper in Edinburgh Royal Society 

Miiller has given currency, is not at all Transactions, vol. xxiii. p. 578. 



186 ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS, WITH 

of personages from the motley theatre of Hellenic legend, 
which may be best adapted for testing the value of the 
different methods of interpretation. 

Prop, xxxvi. — As examples of how the elemental sig- 
nificance of the Hellenic gods reveals itself to a sympathetic 
eye, from the mere presentation, epithets, attitudes, and 
badges of the mythologic personages, we need do no more 
than mention Zeus, Poseidon, and Apollo, in whom all the 
ancients, who exercised reflection at all on the matter, recog- 
nised, with one voice and by an unerring instinct, the great 
elemental powers of the sky, the sea, and the sun. And 
these are precisely the powers which, from their promi- 
nence, might a priori have been predicated as certain to 
obtain a conspicuous place in an anthropomorphic Pan- 
theon of elemental origin. Of these three great gods also 
be it noted, that the first is the only one of which we can 
trace the etymology with any certainty ; but neither does 
this one etymology, when recognised in the Sanscrit word 
Diva, to shine, add anything to the already recognised 
idea of the Hellenic Zeus, nor does the lack of an etymon 
in the other two cases render our perception of the charac- 
ter of the two gods less clear, or our knowledge of their 
significance more certain. With regard to Poseidon, Mr. 
Gladstone's recent attempt to fix on him a Phoenician 
pedigree must be regarded as unsuccessful. The people 
who at an early period sailed to Colchis and to Troy did 
not require to borrow a lord of the flood from the mer- 
chants of Tyre and Sidon. 

Prop, xxxvii.— In Hera, who, to the people and the 
people's poet, was simply the spouse of Zeus, a large class 
of ancient speculators, as is well known, were inclined to 



SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 187 

recognise the lower region of the atmosphere, of which 
Zeus represented the aldr\p, or upper region. But a little 
consideration has convinced most modern interpreters that 
this idea was a mistake. When by the completion of the 
anthropomorphic process the original ovpavos had become 
" Father Jove/' it was most natural that his elemental 
counterpart Ttj } Mother Earth, should become the matron 
Hera ; and with this supposition, the well-known descrip- 
tion of the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera (II. xiv. 345), 
together with the cow-symbolism belonging to the Booottk, 
and her Argive priestess Io, notably harmonize. It is no 
objection to this view, that Ceres or Demeter is also the 
anthropomorphosed earth ; for " the many names of one 
shape," ttoWcov ovo/mdrcov popfyr) fiia, characteristic of the 
oldest elemental theology could easily and did often 
crystallize into two or more shapes of one power. We 
shall, therefore, say with no rash confidence, that the Hel- 
lenic Hera means the earth ; and we readily allow the 
etymological conjectures connected with her name to 
remain conjectures. 

Prop, xxxviii. — On Athena, Max Mtiller says, " The 
Sanscrit root Ah, which in Greek would regularly appear 
as Ach, might likewise then have assumed the form of 
Ath; and the termination Ene, is Sanscrit Ana" (Science 
of Language, vol. ii. p. 503); and again, " How Athena 
being the Dawn, should have become the goddess of wis- 
dom, we can best learn from the Vedas. In Sanscrit, 
Budh means to wake and to know" (Ibid. p. 504). 

But this is manifestly following out a favourite idea 
upon theories of the most flimsy texture. If any etymo- 
logy is to be sought for the syllable AS, the native root 
aid which signifies to glow, corresponding as it does with 



188 ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS, WITH 

the familiar epithet of y\avfcod7n<;, or "flashing-eyed" 
(which I think Welcker suggests), is preferable to that 
suggested by the distinguished Sanscrit scholar. But 
here, as in other slippery cases, the principles laid down 
in the preceding propositions lead me to set etymology 
aside, and to look at the finished figure of the goddess, 
with her badges, relations, and actions, as the natural and 
sure index to her significance. Now if Zeus, according to 
the Greek conception, was the strong, stormy, and thun- 
derous element of the sky — as his epithets Kekaive^, and 
epi/3pefi6T7}s, and T€p7rifeepavvo<;, sufficiently declare — his flash- 
ing-eyed daughter, who alone is privileged to wield his 
thunderbolt (JEschyl. Eumen. 814), must be some action 
or function of the sky. Let her, therefore, be the flashing 
lightning, or the bright rifted azure sky between the dark 
rolling thunder clouds, or both if you please, and you have 
at once an elemental theory which explains adequately 
her anthropomorphic parentage and presentation. As to 
her moral and mental significance, that follows necessarily 
from her Jovian fatherhood. When the all-powerful was 
recognised as at the same time the all- wise and the great 
counsellor (jubTjrlera Zevs), his daughter, as a matter of 
course, became the goddess of practical wisdom, that is, 
of the great arts of peace and war (as the vases largely 
show), the patron and protector of all men of valour like 
Achilles, and of sagacity like Ulysses. 

Prop, xxxix. — The Hellenic Hermes is one of those 
mythological personages who from an originally simple 
root has grown up into such a rich display of graceful 
ramification, that, when we approach him from his most 
familiar side we are the least likely to interpret his true 
significance. But if we attend to the earliest indication 



SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 189 

of his functions as found in Homer, and as displayed in 
the familiar phallic symbol (Herod, n. 51), we can have 
no difficulty in evolving, by a series of graduated expan- 
sions, his final avatar as a god of eloquence, from his 
original germ as a pastoral god of generation and increase 
(Horn. II. xiv. 491). As the god of shepherds and moun- 
taineers, he was necessarily the guide of all wanderers 
through the many winding glens, and across the many- 
folded hills of the Arcadian Highlands. This early func- 
tion accordingly appears in Homer : he is the friendly 
guide of all persons who have lost their way or who 
wander in the dark (Od. x. 277 ; II xxiv. 334). His 
connexion with music and with wrestling, the natural 
recreations of a pastoral people, of course belong to this 
his earliest Hellenic character. Afterwards, when in the 
necessary progress of society the patriarchal shepherd of 
the hills resigned his social position into the hands of the 
rich merchant of the great towns, Hermes became the 
god of gain generally ; and, with gain, of all those arts of 
adroitness and sharpness which belong to the career of a 
successful trader. The kindly guide of night- wandering 
shepherds has now become the expert negotiator, and the 
trusty messenger ; he is the winged servant of the gods 
above ; and among men his oaten pipe is exchanged for 
the charm of winged words, which sways the counsels of 
the wise, and soothes the clamours of the turbulent. With 
this natural and obvious interpretation of a purely Hellenic 
deity, as given within the bounds of Greece itself, we shall 
raise only a brilliant confusion, if we follow Max Mtiller 
across the Hindu Kush, and curiously attempt to find 
the germ of the Pelasgic shepherd-god in the breeze of 
the early dawn, which ushers in the march of the busy 
day. Such remote conjectures may be both beautiful and 



190 ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS, WITH 

ingenious, but they are a mere play of fancy, and travel 
obviously far out of the way of a sober, a scientific, and 
a stable interpretation. 

Prop. xl. — Dionysus was a god of comparatively re- 
cent introduction into Greece (Herod, n. 49), confessedly 
of Asiatic origin, and in whom the union of fervid wine 
with the phallic symbol and violent orgies can leave no 
doubt as to his true character. He is the male god of 
generation, according to the Asiatic conception, as the 
Syrian goddess of Lucian (De Dea Syria, 16) was the 
female one ; and the old Heraclitan principle that fire is 
the origin of all things, rudely conceived by the popular 
imagination, is manifestly that which in this god identi- 
fies the glow of the vine juice, the brewst of the sun, 
with the fervour of the generative process. The fact that 
the worship of Dionysus was not native in Greece, but 
imported from the East, naturally led to the representa- 
tion of this god as a wonderful conqueror, in the fashion 
of Sesostris and Alexander the Great ; from which ana- 
logy, coupled with his preaching the gospel of wine, 
Bryant and other speculators have been eager to find in 
him a perverted Noah ; but the application of the prin- 
ciple of Euhemerus in this case evidently rests on too 
slender a foundation to afford any grounds for a scientific 
interpretation. 

Prop. xli. — Aphrodite is that goddess in whose case 
Mr. Gladstone's favourite idea of Phoenician influence on 
the Greek Pantheon has long been recognised as the most 
certain (Herod. T. 105 ; Pausan. I. 14-6). The recogni- 
tion of this Phoenician element, however, does by no 
means imply that the existence of an original Hellenic 



SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 191 

impersonation of the passion of love, and the seductions 
of personal beauty, should be denied. On the contrary, 
the female deity whom the Phoenicians were seen worship- 
ping in their factories on the coasts of the Mediterranean 
would most probably be accepted by the ancient Pelasgic 
tribes chiefly because they found in her attributes a 
striking identity with their own native Aphrodite. 

Prop. xlii. — Phoenician influence is also undoubtedly 
to be acknowledged in the very complex and composite 
mythology connected with the name of Heracles. But 
the person of Heracles, as we find him in Homer, exhibits 
nothing beyond the exaggerated traits of a stout and 
muscular humanity in combat with fate and circumstance, 
and the wild beasts of the forest — a plain Hellenic coun- 
terpart, in fact, to the Hebrew Samson, of whose historical 
reality, to a mind not violently possessed by German 
theories, there cannot be the slightest reason to doubt. 
The exaggerations connected with his story are the natural 
and necessary effects of the excited popular imagination 
brought to bear on such a character ; but these exaggera- 
tions, taken at their highest, are exhibited on a very 
small platform in Homer, and present a very modest array 
of achievements compared with the multiform mass of 
myth that afterwards accumulated round this representa- 
tive Greek hero. The principle of growth, of such luxuri- 
ant vitality in popular myths, has been obviously at work 
here ; and the sort of omnipresence latterly attributed 
to this wandering queller of monsters is most readily 
explained from the influence of the Phoenician factories 
in the Mediterranean, in whose Melcarth the Greeks 
delighted to recognise their own stout son of Jove and 
Semele. And if this Tyrian Hercules, as Phoenician 



192 ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS, WITH 

scholars incline to believe (Moevers, vol. i. p. 385), really 
was a sun-god, the twelve labours of Hercules will, of 
course, only be the symbolical expression for the progress 
of the Titan sun through the twelve months of the solar 
year. This the ancients themselves, in the Orphic theo- 
logy at least, distinctly recognised. 

Prop, xliii. — In Bellerophon the Germans find a 
favourite example of their theory, that all the heroes of 
the so-called heroic age are the degraded gods of an early 
elemental worship. How this theory is worked out in 
the present case it may be instructive to consider. The 
winged steed, of course, brings you at once into the region 
of the sun. Then you turn up Eustathius' commentary 
on the well-known episode of the Corinthian hero in the 
sixth book of the Iliad (v. 181), and you find there that 
there was an old Greek word eXXepo?, used by Callimachus, 
which is equivalent to /ca/co<; or bad ; but bad things are 
black things ; therefore, with the help of the digamma, 
transmuting eWepo? into /3eXXe/jo9, we arrive at the conclu- 
sion that fieWepocfrovTr)? means the slayer of darkness, and, 
of course, can be nothing but the Hght, or the sun. Bel- 
lerophon is thus, by a dexterous etymological feat, already 
a solar god in full panoply ; and when, in addition to this, 
we find that the worship of the sun was much practised at 
Corinth, the native place of the hero, and that he died in 
Lycia, a country famous for its devotion to the same deity, 
the case for a degraded "HXm>? seems to be satisfactorily 
made out. But, on the other hand, the oldest version of 
the story in Homer has no hint of the winged horse, and 
for the rest, looks in every trait as much like a purely 
human history of those early Greek times as the story of 
St. Columba shows like a real legend of a real Catholic 



SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 193 

apostle in early Christian times. We shall, therefore, in 
my opinion, more wisely say that the airy flight of the 
grandson of Corinthian Sisyphus on his winged Pegasus is 
only the imaginative painting out of a real human journey 
made from such real and natural causes as those which 
Homer details ; and, if the winged horse has anything to 
do with the worship of the sun at Corinth, it is more 
reasonable to suppose that such a blazon should have 
been added for the glorification of a real great man than 
that all the great men of early Corinth should have been 
clean swept from the popular memory to make way for an 
unmeaning Pantheon of degraded and forgotten gods. 

Prop. xliv. — Descending lower down into the region 
of what has the aspect, not of metamorphic theology, but 
of plain human fact, we may take the names of Achilles 
and Theseus as examples of how far the German school is 
inclined to carry its peculiar tactics of finding nothing in 
all early tradition but theological ideas and symbols. As 
to Achilles, the favourite notion with most German 
writers is that this hero is a water god, — a notion founded 
on nothing that I can see, save on the etymological 
analogy of Achelous, the happy coincidence of Peleus 
with the Greek name for mud (77-17X05), and the fact that 
the mother of the hero was a sea-goddess ; and on this 
notion Forchhammer, I believe, or some one of the erudite 
fancymongers beyond the Rhine, constructed a theory 
that the Iliad is really a great geological poem, in which 
water power is represented by Achilles, and land power 
by Hector (from e^co, to hold, restrain, keep back) ! This 
is really too bad. If a man in Thurso, to take a modern 
example, named Waters — and it is a characteristic name 
in that quarter, — were to marry a woman called Loch — a 

N 



194 ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS, WITH 

well-known name in Sutherland — and a daughter, the 
offspring of this marriage, should join herself in wedlock 
to an English gentleman named Rivers, no sane person 
could see in this conjunction of congruous etymologies 
anything but one of those curious coincidences which 
amuse a newspaper reader for a minute, and then are for- 
gotten. Why, then, we ask, should the occurrence of 
water, and mud, and a sea-nymph, among the family 
names of an old Thessalian throne, be supposed to possess 
any more profound significance, even on the supposition 
that the etymologies are certain, which they certainly are 
not ? And accordingly, we find this favourite water 
theory discarded by the Germans themselves the moment 
it does not suit the theory of the interpreter. To Max 
Muller Achilles can be nothing but a solar god ; for his 
imagination, fired with sunlight from the flaming east, 
can see nothing in the stout battles of Greeks and Trojans 
in the Iliad but the grand struggle between the powers 
of light and darkness. Of the probability of this theory 
I have sought in vain for the shadow of a proof. If Helen 
of Troy, whose name can obviously be identified with 
brightness (o-e'Xa? aekrivrj), must on this account take her 
place with her brothers, as a sidereal phenomenon (sic 
Fratres Helence, lucida sidera), this does seem to me an 
exceeding weak foundation for the transformation of the 
whole topographical and traditional heroes of the Iliad 
into a meteoric spectacle. 

If, according to the views set forth in this paper, there 
is no scientific ground for raising Achilles into the cate- 
gory of gods, whether aquarian or solar, much stronger 
are the reasons which induce us, with unsophisticated old 
Plutarch, to see in Theseus no myth, but a great histori- 
cal reality. If the principle be once accepted, that a 



SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 195 

single miraculous fact or incredible story connected in the 
popular imagination with a great popular name shall de- 
prive him simjDliciter of all claim to a historical existence, 
we shall make strange havoc, I fear, with some of the 
most brilliant and the most instructive pages of national 
record. There is no need of believing all the wonderful 
stories that Athenian reverence and wonder accumulated 
round the name of Theseus, as little as there is of believ- 
ing all the silly miracles that the Lausiac history narrates 
of the Egyptian ascetics ; but there is certainly as little 
wisdom in roundly denying the historical germ to which, 
in all such cases, these accretions were attached. 

I have thus pointed out, in a rapid and succinct way, 
what seem to be the leading principles on which a sound 
and safe interpretation of early popular myths must pro- 
ceed. I have kept myself purposely within the bounds of 
what appears sober statement, not being ambitious of the 
glory of adventure in this nebulous field ; and, if I shall 
seem to have achieved a very small thing when I keep 
myself within these bounds, I have at least kept myself 
clear of nonsense, which in mythological science is as 
common as sunk rocks in the Shetland seas. To Max 
Muller, and other Sanscrit scholars, I hope I shall always 
be grateful for any happy illustrations which they may 
supply of the general character of Aryan myths, and of 
occasional coincidences of the Hellenic mode of imagining 
with the Indian ; and I think the somewhat cold and un- 
imaginative race of English scholars are under no small 
obligations to him for having taught them to recognise 
poetical significance and religious value in some legends, 
which passed in their nomenclature for silly fables or 
worthless facts ; but I profess to have been unable to 
derive any sure clue from the far East to the most difii- 



196 ON INTERPRETATION OF POPULAR MYTHS. 

cult questions of Greek mythology ; nor do I expect that, 
when every obsolete word in the BAgveda shall have been 
thoroughly sifted and shaken, a single ray of intelligible 
light will thence now on the Athena of the Parthenon, 
or the Hermes of the Cyllenian slopes. I believe that in 
the region of mythology they will ultimately be found to 
be the wisest, who are at present content to know the 
least ; that, while some mythological fables are too trifling 
to deserve interpretation, others are too tangled to admit 
of it ; and that the man who, at the present day, shall 
attempt to interpret the Greek gods from the translitera- 
tion of Sanscrit or Hebrew words, will be found, like 
Ixion, to have embraced a cloud for a goddess, and to 
have fathered a magnificent lie from the fruitful womb 
of his own conceit. There is no more dangerous passion 
than that which an ingenious mind conceives for the fine 
fancies which it begets. 



ON THE SOPHISTS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, b.c. 

One of the most remarkable phenomena in our recent 
historical literature is a tendency to whitewash all char- 
acters which had previously presented a black aspect ; 
to prefer the intellectual divination of a subtle modern 
professor to the plain testimony of a sober old chronicler ; 
and generally to unsettle all things that we had in previ- 
ous ages been taught to look on as settled. That this 
tendency, dating from the gigantic excavations of Niebuhr 
and Wolf, had its origin in an honest love of truth, and a 
searching scrutiny of evidence, cannot be doubted. That 
its results have in the main been beneficial is equally cer- 
tain ; but, on the other hand, it is not to be denied that 
it has sometimes run into the most wanton excesses, 
and has tainted not a few of the most notable historical 
productions of our age with a vice which will render it 
necessary for a future generation to repeat the work now 
done from a broader point of view, and with a juster criti- 
cism. Among the great works which have not escaped 
this prevalent contagion must be named the History of 
Greece, by George Grote. In this work, while the demo- 
cratic institutions of Athens have been vindicated in the 
most masterly manner, and the political tone of the work 
may be regarded as, on the whole, sound, the author has 
in some prominent sections blotted his pages with the 
peculiarly German rage of substituting conjecture for fact, 
and overriding testimony by theory. And in doing this 



198 ON THE SOPHISTS 

he has not only acted more like a German than an 
Englishman, but he has in some instances proceeded 
far beyond the bounds of negative criticism and bold 
assertion which the best German writers have observed. 
In no part of his work does this tendency, not only to 
overdo, but altogether to invert the natural order of 
things, appear more prominently than in his chapter on 
Socrates and the Sophists. In this part of his work, while 
he presents himself to the general reader as the chivalrous 
champion of injured innocence, the accurate weigher of 
historical evidence sees only another instance of the won- 
derful effect of a favourite theory in blinding a sensible 
man to the truth which radiates from the strongest testi- 
mony. To the reader of Mr. Grote's chapter it must cer- 
tainly seem as if Socrates had spent his life most stupidly, 
if not most basely, in fighting with a class of men, of 
which he himself was one, the best among many good, 
and that Protagoras was a far more sensible man, and at 
bottom a much more profound philosopher than Plato. 
The effect produced by this chapter of the history has 
been rather increased than diminished by the distin- 
guished historian's comment on the Protagoras and other 
dialogues in his recent work on Plato. Here also we are 
regularly given to understand that Plato was a much 
overrated man, and that the true objects of human admira- 
tion are rather the men whom it was the constant object 
of his philosophy to refute. This is even a bolder stroke 
of what, borrowing a phrase from mathematicians, I may 
call the invertendo style of criticism, than any with which 
the world has been favoured from the disintegrating 
school of Lachmann, Kochly, and other trans-Phenane 
commentators on the Homeric poems. They, at least, 
while they annihilated the poet, left us the poem to 



OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, B.C. 199 

admire. Here the divine objects of old reverence are 
thrown away as idols, and the old recognised idols are 
set up as the true God. 

The great authority of Mr. Grote in all matters of 
Greek history, and the wide circulation of his work, ren- 
der it expedient that a public contradiction should be 
given to his errors from as many independent quarters as 
possible ; and, though I am perfectly satisfied with what 
I find written on this subject by an excellent scholar, Mr. 
Cope of Cambridge, in the Cambridge Philological Jour- 
nal, vol. i., as also by Professor Zeller, in his Philosophic 
der Griechen, Tubingen, 1856 ; yet, as my own opinions 
have been formed altogether independently, and are based 
on a careful study of Plato, extending through a series of 
years, I have thought that a succinct statement of the 
bearings of this important historical question would not 
prove unacceptable to persons interested in the history of 
Greek philosophy. I proceed, therefore, to make a short 
statement of Mr. G rote's theory, followed by an equally 
short statement of how, from my point of view, his argu- 
ments ought to be met. 

Mr. Grote ushers in the statement of his views by this 
general declaration — " I know few characters in history 
who have been so hardly dealt with as the Sophists ; they 
bear the penalty of their name in its modern sense ; " and 
the modern sense of the word, according to the whole 
tenor of the learned gentleman's argument, is about as far 
removed from the original and genuine sense, as the Eng- 
lish word demon is from the Homeric word Sal/Awv. To 
restore its proper meaning, as he conceives, to this sadly 
misunderstood word, the learned historian brings forward, 
according to my analysis, six arguments. 

(1.) It is plain from Plato himself— in this case we 



200 ON THE SOPHISTS 

must suppose an unwilling witness — that many of the 
Sophists were excellent and sensible men, and in every 
way capable of being the instructors of youth. 

(2.) In fact, the Sophists were the great teachers of the 
age to which they belonged ; and Socrates owed his posi- 
tion and his influence altogether to being one of them. 
The great exhibition of young democratic energy which 
had culminated at Marathon was now riding onward tri- 
umphantly to another and a higher development. Of this 
period of transition between the youth and the manhood 
of the Athenian intellect the Sophists were the natural 
representatives, and the worthy spokesmen. 

(3.) Plato was a man of peculiar idiosyncrasy, a great 
intellect confessedly, but a crotchety pedant in some 
matters, and a transcendental dreamer in others. His 
witness — at bottom the only serious testimony against 
the Sophists (for of the great jester Aristophanes in such 
matters we need take no account) — is consequently of 
no value, and cannot, without the grossest injustice, be 
quoted against such sober, sensible, and practical thinkers 
as Protagoras and Gorgias. 

(4.) The immoral teaching, attributed to the Sophists, 
and set forth by Plato through the mouth of Callicles in 
the Gorgias and of Thrasymachus in the Republic, must 
be a figment ; for the whole history of the Athenian demo- 
cracy shows that such doctrines would have been utterly 
revolting to them, and men professing such doctrines 
never would have been allowed the slightest influence in 
the education of their sons. 

(5.) The Sophists, in fact, as a body, had no peculiar 
system of morals, either bad or good ; as little had they 
any system of philosophic doctrine. They were a profes- 
sion, not a sect. 



OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, B.C. 201 

(6.) The standing objection made to the Sophists by 
Plato, in almost all his Dialogues, that they were a venal 
and mercantile crew, because they taught philosophy for 
a fee, need scarcely require refutation at our hands, living, 
as we do, in a country where the expediency of payment 
for all sorts of professional work is universally recognised. 
One does not, indeed, see how the Sophists could have 
performed their duties as general Hellenic teachers, 
travelling from land to land, had they not exacted a 
considerable fee, if it were only to pay their travelling 
expenses. 

These propositions, it will be seen, have a polemical 
aspect, as indeed it is both the vice and the virtue of Mr. 
Grote's book generally, that he is everywhere writing 
down an old view of Hellenic matters, and writing up a 
new one. In order, therefore, fully to understand the 
drift of his statements, we must set distinctly before us 
the old doctrine about the Sophists which he affects to 
have overturned ; and though this might be done by a 
large array of testimonies from many quarters, it will be 
sufficient for our present purpose to cite two of the best 
known authorities, Brucker and Gillies, who may be 
looked on as the generally recognised exponents of the 
ante-Grotian doctrine with regard to the Sophists. In 
his History of Philosophy, vol. i. p. 549, the erudite old 
Augsburg theologian says: — " Erant turn temporis Athenis 
Sophistce, magistri docendi, quotes Leontinus Gorgias, 
Thrasymachus, Protagoras Abderites, Prodicus Geius, 
Hippias Eleus aliique, qui in eo potissimum artem consis- 
tere arrogantibus verbis jactabant, quemadmodum caussa 
inferior, dicendo superior evadere posset ; id quod, docente 
Cicerone sententiarum magis concinnitate argutoque et 
circumscripto verborum ambitu quam eorum pondere 



202 ON THE SOPHISTS 

efficere tentabant. Hinc homines vani, ambitiosi, avari, 
quique soli sibi sapere videbantur, et omnium disciplinarum 
cognitionem sibi arrogabant, non tantum hanc in utramque 
partem de quavis re proposita invictis argumentis dispu- 
tandi artem publice exercebant, sed et magnificis earn 
promissis nobilem juventutem brevi tempore se docturos 
pollicebantiir. Quae eo ardentius ad hos nugatores depro- 
perabat, quod ita se utilissimam rationem discere posse 
speraret, populum in suas partes trahendi, et ex eivium 
ad quos loquendum erat, judicio et calculo summam rerum 
ad se trahendi, vel etiam in potestate semel aequisita, jiexo 
populi per istam eloquentiam obsequio, se eonjirmandi." 
And Gillies, in his well-known History of Greece, vol. ii. 
p. 133, says, in distinct antithesis to Mr. Grote, that the 
" appellation Sophist, in its modern sense, pretty faithfully 
expresses their character," and that " their morality sup- 
plied the springs from which Epicurus watered his gardens, 
and their captious logic furnished the arguments by which 
Pyrrho laboured to justify his scepticism." 

Now, in reference to these opposing views, my asser- 
tion is, that the old view, though not exhaustive of the 
whole truth of the matter, and not recognising certain 
modifications which tend to soften the harsher lines of the 
portrait, is on the whole the right view ; while the new 
view, if containing an element of correction in some 
secondary points, is on the whole a false and misleading 
view, or rather a total misrepresentation and inversion of 
the facts of the case. The proof may be given, disposing 
of Mr. Grote's six arguments in then- order, as follows : — 

(1.) The general character of the Sophists, in their 
capacity of public teachers, is in no wise affected by the 
fact that there were great differences in their personal 
characters, and that some of them, like Protagoras, were, 



OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, B.C. 202 



as the world goes, most respectable and reputable men. 
The Scribes and Pharisees in the Gospel history were 
respectable and reputable enough, no doubt, or had at 
least many most respectable and reputable men in their 
body ; but not the less were their doctrines false and their 
teaching pernicious. So much only we may grant to the 
learned historian, that if any one ever said that there 
were no men of average respectability among the Sophists, 
such an assertion is altogether unwarranted, and is con- 
trary to the plainest indications on the very surface of 
Plato. 

(2.) A similar admission may be made with regard to 
the historical significance of the Sophists generally, with- 
out, in the slightest degree, trenching on the ground 
occupied by Plato. That the Sophists, like everything 
else in the world, had their good side, might have been 
assumed, if it could not have been proved ; and it is 
equally certain, that when once a body of men like the 
Sophists, or the Scribes and Pharisees, or the Romish 
priests, gets a bad name, the defects of character out of 
which that bad name arose are apt to occupy the whole 
of the canvas in historical tradition, while their virtues 
are altogether forgotten, or even denied. Hence arises 
the necessity for some sort of justification ; a justification, 
however, which, while it may be allowed slightly to 
qualify, does not in any wise nullify the unfavourable 
character of the original verdict. A sort of plea in ex- 
tenuation of this class of men was therefore, in the very 
nature of the case, to have been expected ; and I am 
indebted to Professor Zeller's admirable Geschichte cler 
Griechischen Philosophie for a reference to two of the 
earliest authorities, in which this reaction in favour of 
the Sophists appears. The one is Meiners, in his Geschichte 



204 ON THE SOPHISTS 

der Wissenschaften, published at Lemgo in the year 1782, 
and the other that of Hegel, in his lectures on the history 
of philosophy delivered on various occasions soon after the 
commencement of the present century. Professor Meiners 
(vol. ii. pp. 172-599) says, " The Sophists deserve not 
merely to be despised and denounced, but in many views 
they claim respect and eulogy — a recognition which even 
their most violent opponents have not refused. They 
were the great public teachers and enlighteners of Greece; 
they were a necessary link in the chain of intellectual life 
in Greece." But while admitting this, the same author 
says a little further on, that " their morality was right 
in the teeth of the Socratic morality/' and that, " on a 
review of the whole matter, we must agree with Xeno- 
phon, Plato, Isocrates, and those who followed them, that 
the Sophists did their country more harm than good, and 
that they corrupted more hearts than they enlightened 
heads." This representation deserves special notice as 
contrasted with Mr. Grote's ; for, while it fully admits the 
extenuating circumstance, it does not deny the general 
truth of the crime charged. Hegel places the palliative 
circumstance in a stronger light ; indeed, he purposely 
brings it into the foreground, as being, in his phraseology, 
the one " positive and truly scientific side" of the matter. 
But by this he means, not that the faults with which the 
Sophists are generally charged did not really exist, but 
that whatever faults a faulty thing may possess, its virtues 
are the only element in it which has any value to a philo- 
sophic mind. From this point of view he says, that " the 
Sophists were the teachers of Greece, by whom intellectual 
culture (Bildung) was brought into existence. They came 
into the place of the poets and rhapsodists, who were 
originally the only teachers. Religion in Greece did not 



OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, B.C. 205 

teach. Priests offered sacrifices, soothsayers divined the 
future, but instruction is something quite different." This 
is admirable ; but with this the great Berlin notionalist 
is far from shutting his eyes to the weak side of these 
teachers. He proceeds to represent them as practising 
a logic both superficial and unprincipled. He shows 
also the peculiar danger which attached to such a logic 
when applied to practical purposes in an atmosphere of 
sensual polytheism. " In our European world," he writes, 
" intellectual culture appeared under the protection, so to 
speak, and on the foundation, of a spiritual religion. But 
when intellectual dexterity had to do only with a religion 
of the imagination, it readily shook itself loose from any 
central holding-point, or, at all events, particular subor- 
dinate points of view might easily be made to play the 
part of an ultimate principle." And again, " A man 
of education and experience always knows how to set 
things in a good light to serve the occasion. In the 
worst action something lies which, being singled out and 
skilfully presented, makes it defensible. A person must 
have gone a very short way in his intellectual educa- 
tion, if he does not know how to advance fair reasons to 
justify the worst actions. All the evil that has happened 
in the world since Adam has happened with the help of 
fair reasons." From these passages, which I think could 
not possibly be better expressed, we see how little the 
granting of Mr. Grote's second argument has to do with 
the conclusion at which he so sweepingly arrives. The 
most comprehensive philosophical thinker of the most 
philosophic country in the world can see with the utmost 
distinctness that the Sophists were not all black, and yet 
that they dealt with the most important matters of human 
concernment in a loose and slippery fashion, which com- 



206 ON THE SOPHISTS 

pletely justified the attitude of uncompromising hostility 
constantly assumed towards them by both Socrates and 
Plato. 

(3.) Hitherto Mr. Grote's arguments, so far as they 
present a mere plea in palliation of the Sophists, have 
appeared not only plausible, but in the highest degree 
reasonable ; and, had he stopped at this point, there would 
have been no question at this moment before the learned 
world on the matter. But, unfortunately, the democratic 
historian here, by over-pleading his case, betrays the 
inherent weakness of his cause. He claims a verdict of 
acquittal for his clients, and can do so only, as we shall 
now see, by attempting to override an array of historical 
testimonies, such as, in the general case, would make any 
but a thorough-paced German ideamonger shrink back in 
dismay. The witnesses in this case are not few, and they 
are all on one side. Let us see how the learned historian 
disposes of them. In the first place, he throws Plato 
and Aristophanes, the greatest thinker and the greatest 
humorist of the age, simpliciter, out of court ; and then, 
by either overlooking other testimonies, or referring them 
back to the twin authors of the original calumny, he tells 
the jury, with a gay confidence, that there is nothing more 
in the case. But there is a wholesale air about this pro- 
cedure, which, with a sober-minded man, only acts as a 
warning to use caution. To commence with the two 
original framers of the indictment. No doubt Aristo- 
phanes was a maker of jests, but he was no mere buffoon. 
He was a great thinker as well as a great humorist ; and 
his comedies expressly deal with all the principal literary, 
philosophical, and political questions of the age. Such 
men are not apt to fling their humorous shafts at a mere 
imagination. On the contrary, their strength lies in the 



OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, B.C. 207 

fact that the phenomenon which they ridicule has a wide, 
popular recognition, and is everywhere felt to be a fact. 
A man of the calibre of Aristophanes could not have writ- 
ten such a comedy as The Clouds, against such a class of 
persons as the Sophists, had not such a class of persons 
existed, any more than the well-known scientific song of 
The Origin of Species, composed by a witty Scotch judge, 
could have existed without a Darwin and a school of 
Darwins. The humorist's view of the case, indeed, is not 
necessarily the scientific view ; but it may be, and often 
is, the true view, or, at all events, represents strongly 
one true aspect of the case. Otherwise, not only would 
the humour be pointless, but a great humorist certainly 
would not meddle with the matter at all. Incidental 
errors, such as the confounding of Socrates with the mass 
of public teachers, of which he was one, do not affect the 
fundamental truth of the case. The Clouds is a play 
against the Sophists, not against Socrates. 

But, however slight the value which a grave man may 
be inclined to give to the testimony of a great public 
humorist on a question of philosophy, if it stood alone, 
the case is completely altered the moment that his laugh- 
ing testimony is confirmed by the serious witness of 
a professional thinker. The error which the greatest 
thinker and the greatest humorist of the age agree in 
condemning is not likely to have been an imagination. 
No doubt, in such a case, a great deal depends on the 
character of the philosopher ; and Plato is not a name 
likely to forestall favour with a class of minds largely 
represented in this land, which rejoices to call itself pre- 
eminently practical, and shares in a more than Napo- 
leonic hatred of all ideology. But let us distinguish. 
Plato undoubtedly had his crotchets : he was in some 



208 ON THE SOPHISTS 

things a most unpractical man, and knew that he was 
so ; unquestionably, also, his theory of ideas may often 
have been stated in exaggerated language, and with a 
paradoxical air, eminently provocative of the opposition 
which, ever since Aristotle, it has encountered. But 
the testimony of the philosopher in reference to the 
Sophists is a thing much broader, and rooted much more 
deeply, than any of his crotchets about methodizing the 
sexual instinct, or building up an ideal polity. Here we 
have the fact that a great philosopher of all-command- 
ing mind, the founder of a great and permanent school of 
thinking, who stood to his age in the same relation that 
Bacon does to ours, makes it the business of his life to 
write against, and represents his great master, Socrates, 
as having made it the business of his life to speak against, 
a class of men who professed certain principles generally 
esteemed pernicious, but which, according to Mr. Grote's 
view of the matter, were, in fact, most excellent and 
laudable. And this testimony, so given, was accepted by 
the universal voice of antiquity. It met, in fact, no 
decided contradiction till the epiphany of Mr. Grote. 
Now, there is nothing altogether impossible in the sup- 
position that Mr. Grote may be right. It may some- 
times be given to a Niebuhr, after a lapse of 2000 years, 
to reconstruct a history of Rome ; but we are not to start 
with a prepossession in favour of such brilliant novelties. 
They are rather to be looked on with suspicion, and require 
strong backing. Plato, moreover, it must be borne in 
mind, with all his tendency to one-sided exaggerations, 
was by no means a narrow-minded, an ungenerous, much 
less a spiteful or an ill-natured man. No man was more in 
the habit of looking at both sides of a question, and more 
unlikely to put up a man of straw for an adversary. His 



OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, B.C. 209 

treatment of Protagoras, Gorgias, and other Sophists, is 
what we would call gentlemanly in the highest degree, 
and gives the reader a sort of guarantee that what he 
alleges against the general body to which he belonged 
had some good foundation. In weighing the testimony 
of Plato and Aristophanes also, with regard to such a 
class of men as the Sophists are alleged to have been, we 
must consider the presumptions and possibilities of the 
case. Is there anything strange or improbable in the 
statement, that in a talking town like Athens, full of all 
sorts of quick-witted and light-witted democratic people, 
there should have arisen, in an age of intellectual transi- 
tion, a set of shallow thinkers, who cultivated the faculty 
of expression at the expense of the faculty of thought 
and exercised their understanding with a clever logical 
dexterity, rather than with the earnest search after truth ? 
To myself it seems the most natural thing in the world 
to suppose the existence of such a class of men — a class 
of men, indeed, almost certain to exist at all times 
wherever there is a demand for them ; and particularly 
dangerous, as Hegel remarks, in a country where a 
sensuous religion exists, altogether divorced from any 
serious training, either of the intellect or the character. 

Starting from these presumptions, I must confess I 
should be inclined to accept the portrait of the Sophists 
in every feature, and with its full colouring, as given by 
the god of the philosophers, and the king of the humor- 
ists, even if their testimony in this matter stood alone. 
But the plain and admitted fact here is, that neither the 
philosopher nor the humorist does stand alone ; they are 
supported by the consenting voice of antiquity. The 
heritage of Greek opinion on this subject was transmitted 
to Cicero ; and he says {Acad. n. 23), " Sophistce appel- 



210 ON TEH SOPHISTS 

lantur qui ostentationis aut qucestiis causa philosophantur." 
Among the Greeks themselves, those whose testimony 
was of the highest value, and who lived nearest to the 
time, and who were most interested in the subject, set 
their seal in the strongest language to the witness of the 
great idealist. Who are the writers whom a wise judge 
would call into court, and hear with impartial eagerness 
in a trial of this kind ? Socrates and Xenophon, Isocrates 
and Aristotle — any one of these would be sufficient, in 
my judgment, to nail down, for an absolute certainty, 
whatever Plato and Aristophanes might have previously 
combined to testify as a prominent fact in the history of 
Greek intellectual life. Of these four, though the most 
remote in point of time, Aristotle is the most weighty ; 
and this not only on account of the accurate, inductive, 
and encyclopaedic character of his mind, but specially on 
account of his known propensity to contradict everything 
that Plato says, when it comes in his way. None of the 
products of that peculiarly Platonic idiosyncrasy, which 
Mr. Grote brings forward so prominently, does the Stagy- 
rite show the slightest desire to spare. Spartan women 
and Platonic ideas are two matters, in discussing which 
he almost seems to lose for a moment the imperturbable 
judicial coolness of his intellect. But the Sophists he 
describes in exactly the same language as Plato, and in 
language which forms a sufficient justification for the 
peculiar use of the name in modern times. In Soph. EL 
I. 6, he says, "Eari yap rj (70(pL(TTiK7) <j)aivofievr) ao<j>ca ova a 
Be /jlt], kcli 6 cro(piaT7i<; %pr)/jLaTiaTr)<; airo (pcuvofievr)? o-o(j)ca<; aX\ 

OVK 01/(777?. 

The testimonies of Socrates and Xenophon need not 
be specified here in detail. They will be found below in a 
note, and have been admirably handled by Mr. Cope in 



OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, B.C. 211 

the Essay to which I previously alluded. 1 Only to the 
witness of Isocrates I call particular attention, as that of 
a man who was by the general bent of his mind not at all 
inclined to sympathize with any transcendental notions of 
high-strung intellectualists like Plato, and who, as himself 
one of the most reputable of the class of Sophists to whom 
Gorgias belonged, would naturally feel no inclination to 
bring a charge against any large section of the fraternity, 
which might serve to increase the natural odium that in 
not a few quarters had always attached to the name. 
His words are as follows : — [Kara tcov o-ofy' I). 

Tts yap ovk dv pLo-fjcreLev a/xa Kal Karac^pov^creLe irpdrov pev twv irepl 
ra? epiSas Star/Oi/?ovT(ov, ot 7rpo<nrotovvrai pXv Tr)v dXfjOetav (rjTetv, evOvs 
S' kv dpyrj twv krrayyeXpaTiov xfevSrj Xkyeiv kTri^apova-LV ; olpLai yap aTracriv 
eivai cjiavepbu, on tol pkXXovTa rrpoy ty v&o~Keiv ov Trjs rjpeTepas <£vo-€cus 
Icttiv, aAAa toctovtov a7rk)(opL€V ravrrjs Trjs cfipovrjoreus, oio-6' "OpLrjpos 6 
/xeytVr^v kirl cro(j)ta So£av eiA^ws Kal tovs 6eovs 7T€7toi^/<€v io~Tiv ore 
fiovXevopevovs vrrlp avT&v, ov Tr)v kKtlvoiV yva>p.Y)v d8u)s aXX rjp.lv 
kvBet^ao-Oai f3ovX6p.evos, otl rots dv6pa)7rois kv tovto twv dSwdnov kcniv. 

Ovtoi tolvvv els tovto ToXp,rjs kXrj XvOacriV) tucrre TretpiovTat Trs.i9s.iv 
tovs veaiTepovs, a>s, rjv avTois TrXrjcrLdfoo-iv, a re TrpaKTeov kcrTiv eio-ovTal 
Kal Std TavTrjs Trjs kTTLCTTrjpLrjs ev8aip,oves yevrjo-ovTai. Kal T-qXiKovTiav 
dyaOcov avTovs StBao-KaXovs Kal Kvpiovs KaTao-TrjcravTes ovk alcrxvvovTai 
Tpels rj T€TTa/oas pvds vwep tovtwv dtTOvvTes. dXX' el /xev tl tuv dXXiov 
KTrjpaTWV ttoXXoo-tov p,epovs Trjs d£cas k-<x>Xovv, ovk dv rjpt^LcrfiyJTrjcrav, a>s 
ovk ev <f>povovvT€s Tvyxdvovcrt, o-vpLwacrav Se Tr)v dptTrjv Kal Tr)v evSaipLoviav 
ovTb)S oXiyov TtpiovTes, a>S vovv €^ovt€S h&do-KaXoi twv aAAcov a^iovcrt 
ytyveoSai. Kal Xkyovcn p.ev, o>s ovSev SkovTai xp-qpidTOiV, dpyvpiSiov Kal 
Xpvo-L&LOV tov ttAovtov a7ro/<aAo{!vT€S, pitKpov 8e KepSovs opeyopbevoc povov 
ovk dOavaTOVs vmcryyovvTai tovs o~vvovTas Trotrjo-eiv. 

1 The contrast between the doctrine ing piaBos for teaching morality, is 

of Socrates and that of the Sophists, stated by Socrates exactly as in Plato, 

in reference to the origin of moral Xenophon's own opinion is expressed 

distinctions, is shown distinctly in very strongly in the last chapter of 

the discussion between the former the treatise De Venatione : " Ot be 

and Hippias, in Xen. Mem. iv. 4. o-ofyiaTaX §' iiri ra igaTrardv Xeyovai, 

13; and in the same work, i. 2. 6, Kal ypdcjiovaiv iir\r<o eavrcov icepbei, ko.\ 

the well-known objection to receiv- ovbeva ovSev 6cpeXova-i, k.t.X." 



212 ON THE SOPHISTS 

(4.) With regard to the moral teaching of the Sophists, 
Mr. Grote is quite right when he says that such an un- 
blushing assertion of the doctrine that might is right, as 
is propounded by Callicles in the Gorgias, however wel- 
come to Dionysius in his rocky hold at Syracuse, would 
have been anything but agreeable to the Athenian de- 
mocracy. But it is not necessary for those who consider 
that the Sophists were bad, and sometimes very bad 
moral guides, to maintain that they went about every- 
where advocating despotic principles. Protagoras, Pro- 
dicus, and Gorgias, and the other members of this not- 
able brotherhood, whatever weak points their philosophy 
might offer to a sharp logician, were men of the world, 
and not likely to commence their teaching by rubbing 
their audience violently against the hair. Neither is 
there the slightest reason to suppose that all of them, or 
the majority of them, held immoral opinions with the 
same grand consistency with which their spokesman pro- 
claims them in the Gorgias. The received doctrine with 
regard to the sophistical ethics which the learned his- 
torian undertakes to refute, is simply this, that by refer- 
ring our ideas of right altogether to institution and con- 
vention, and in nowise to nature and divine necessity, 
they sapped the foundations of all morality, and made a 
justification of every iniquity easy to those who chose to 
argue consistently on their principles. And that there 
were plenty of men in Athens only too ready to carry such 
a doctrine to its legitimate practical conclusion, the un- 
principled character of many public men in Athens, from 
Alcibiades to iEschines, sufficiently testifies. The char- 
acter of the Athenian 8fjfj,o$ may be placed as high as Mr. 
Grote, according to a democratic ideal, finds himself war- 
ranted to plant it ; but it was not the c%to? properly 



OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, B.C. 213 

so called, that is, the middle and lower strata of the 
Athenian people, by whom the principles of the slippery 
sophistical ethics were principally imbibed. It was the 
sons of the rich men, the oligarchy, the hvvarot, that had 
most leisure and most ability to frequent the lectures of 
such men as Protagoras, and to pay their fees ; and how 
grandly they profited by their instructions, the oligarchic 
conspiracy of the four hundred in the year 411 B.C., and 
the government of the thirty tyrants, proclaimed to all 
the world with a signature of blood, whose significance 
Mr. Grote would be the very last man to misinterpret. 

(5.) Mr. Grote's fifth argument, that the Sophists 
were not a sect or body of men like the Stoics and the 
Platonists, holding any particular set of opinions, but only 
a profession, like our modern literary men, critics, and 
reviewers, may be disposed of in a single sentence. 
Nobody ever said that they were a sect, but a class of 
men following a particular profession, and who were dis- 
tinguished generally by a certain common character and 
principles. Of this the French Encyclopaedists, to whom 
the Sophists have been aptly compared, were a notable 
example. 

(6.) The matter of the yaaQo^, or fee which the Sophists 
charged for their instructions, must not be looked at from 
a merely modern point of view. The Sophists were not, 
like our professors, public servants engaged to give a 
certain special training to young men, either on receipt of 
a salary from the public, or of single fees from individual 
students. They came forward voluntarily with broad 
general professions, to fit men for public life, by teaching 
both the art of public speaking and all that effective 
speaking implies. They professed to teach the wisdom of 
life, the art of getting on, and especially the art of governing 



214 ON THE SOPHISTS 

men in popular assemblies. This, it is evident, is a very 
serious matter, and very different from the attitude that 
belongs to any modern teacher. What they professed 
to do could not be done scientifically without discussing 
the principles of right and wrong, and teaching virtue, 
aperr\ in fact as well as pr)ropacr\. This is the point so 
ably brought out in the Gorgias. Now, the receiving of a 
fee for a large profession of this kind is a very different 
thing from paying a price for a pair of boots to a shoe- 
maker, or for so many lessons in grammar to a language 
master. The question might be raised on the very 
threshold — Can virtue he taught ? the famous question, el 
SiSatcTov v) dperrj, discussed in the Menon and the Prota- 
goras ; and the strongest arguments were at hand to prove 
that, if it was teachable at all, it certainly was not to be 
taught in the same way that dancing may be learned from 
a dancing master, or music from a music master. A man 
goes to a teacher of Sanscrit, for instance, gets so many 
hours' grammatical exposition, appropriates the cram, 
passes his examination, gets an Indian appointment, and 
reposes comfortably upon more than the value of his fee. 
Here there is a definite quid for a definite quo, in the 
most distinct and mercantile sense. But the moral 
teacher must go to work in a different fashion. He does 
not offer a marketable article, and therefore cannot expect 
or demand a market price. For a mere course of lectures 
on the virtues, with which the scholar is to be duly 
crammed, will not do the business ; it may prove worse 
than useless. A moral teacher must commence with 
teaching the student to see his faults, to confess his errors, 
and to amend his way. No man comes forward with a 
guinea in his hand to get instruction of this kind. No 
man expects to be paid for giving good but disagreeable 



OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, B.C. 215 

advice to a conceited coxcomb, or a pompous pretender. 
And, accordingly, in our Christian churches clergymen are 
paid, not the value of their sermons, but, like the Platonic 
fyvKcuces, they receive a general salary for their main- 
tenance. A sermon has no market value. No man paid 
the Hebrew prophets for their patriotic denunciations. 
The Athenians paid Socrates for his life-long speaking of 
all truth, and exposing of all sham, with a dungeon and a 
cup of hemlock. I therefore think that Socrates was right 
in refusing to receive a fee for teaching virtue. Besides, 
there is an element of convention in this matter which must 
not be overlooked. No public man in this country is paid, or 
would receive payment, for serving his country as a member 
of Parliament ; and if Protagoras, or any other accomplished 
speaker, came forward in Athens professing to teach vir- 
tue for a fee, the public conscience was entitled to be 
offended by the novelty, and to make a strict cross-exami- 
nation of the individual who made such pretentious pro- 
fessions. One thing is certain, that not only in Athens, 
but in modern England and everywhere, the public teacher 
who demands no fee for his services, and can be suspected 
of not the slightest admixture of mercenary motives, must 
always stand upon a moral vantage ground that the paid 
teacher cannot occupy. This is the secret, or part of the 
secret at least, of the great influence exercised by Whit- 
field and other zealous evangelists in the last century, 
who, flinging away the golden hopes of ecclesiastical pre- 
ferment, devoted themselves to field preaching and mis- 
sionary work among the most abandoned classes, by whom 
an entirely moral service could be repaid only by a moral 
reward. 

This paper may be most fitly concluded by an articu- 
late statement of the heads of the sophistical doctrine, as I 



216 ON THE SOPHISTS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, B.C. 

abstract them from the works of Plato, supported by the 
general testimony of the ancients : — 

I. General information and alert intelligence without 
a philosophical basis, or a scientific method of verification. 

ii. The art of public speaking, considered merely as a 
means of moving masses of ignorant men with a view to 
political advancement, but not necessarily connected 
either with pure motives, lofty purpose, or business 
habits. 

in. The exercise of a dexterous logic, that aimed at 
the ingenious, the striking, and the plausible, rather than 
the judicious, the solid, and the true. 

iv. A theory of metaphysics which, by confounding 
knowledge with sensation, and subordinating the general 
to the particular, made wisdom consist rather in the 
expert use of present opportunity, than in the moulding 
of materials according to an intellectual principle. 

v. A theory of morals which, by basing right on con- 
vention, not on nature, deprived our sensuous feelings and 
animal passions of the imperial control of reason, and sub- 
stituted for the eternal instinct of justice in the human 
heart the arbitrary enactments of positive law, whose 
ultimate sanction is the intelligent selfishness of the 
individual. 






ON THE PKINCIPLE OF ONOMATOPCEIA IN 
LANGUAGE. 

By ovofiaroTroda the Greek grammarians understood that 
principle, or tendency in the growth of language, accord- 
ing to which certain words are formed by an imitation 
of the sounds which they signify. Thus, 6jk, the root of 
ojKao-Oai, to bray, may be considered to have been formed 
by a human mimicry of the sound uttered by that animal 
to which human beings of the lowest cerebral capacity 
are familiarly compared ; and in the same way, laogh, the 
Gaelic for a calf, seems to contain a sound to which only 
the throats of Highland calves, Highland chieftains, and 
Highland crofters are competent. The word onomatopoeia, 
like some other technical terms of the old grammarians, 
is not particularly happy, for it means only and generally 
word-making, or rather name-making, and says nothing of 
the principle by which the special class of words in ques- 
tion is made. Instead of this term, therefore, I should 
prefer to speak of the imitative or pictorial principle in 
the formation of human speech ; and I should contrast 
the whole class of words in which the operation of this 
principle can be traced, with another class, derived from 
ideas or notions about the thing to be named in the mind 
of the word-maker. Thus, the modern Greeks call a cock 
irereivo, that is, the fowl, or flying animal, from irerofiai, to 
fly ; and the Latin word, equus, a horse, if it comes, as 
Professor Mliiler says, from the Sanscrit adjective clsliu. 



218 ON THE PRINCIPLE OF 

sharp or swift, 1 will be another word formed on the same 
principle. The roots of these words I propose to call 
notional roots, as contrasted with the onomatopoetic class 
of roots ; which I propose to call pictorial roots, or roots 
formed by phonic imitation. 

Professor Mtiller, in his valuable work on the Science 
of Language, has, in both volumes, either denied alto- 
gether the existence of this class of words, or treated 
them with such marked disfavour, that in his system 
they do not appear at all as effective agents in the forma- 
tion of reasonable speech, but merely play a subordinate 
and scarcely human part in the precincts of the poultry- 
yard and the pig-sty. If, in the central table-land of 
Asia, before the divarication of the great Aryan races, a 
Persian pig gave a grunt, the learned Professor might 
perhaps be willing to admit, or might be forced to admit, 
that there was some connexion in the way of mimetic 
reproduction between the sound uttered by that animal 
and the words ypv& in Greek, grunnio in Latin, grunt in 
English, and grumphie in Scotch. If, when the sacred 
chickens in their cages were observed by the Roman 
augurs to give forth an attenuated indication of the 
approaching fates, according to their vocal capacity, and 
if the speakers of the Latin dialect of the Aryan family 
agreed to designate the sound then emitted by the root 
pipi, familiarly known as a verb of the fourth conjugation, 
pipire, with the variety pipilare, applied to sparrows — 
in this case also, we presume, those who disown the pic- 
torial principle would be inclined to concede some pretty 
mimicry of the small unreasoning by the great reason- 
ing animal. Or, to take an example from an altogether 
different quarter, in the word " chirumvurumvuru, used 

1 See Miiller ii. 65. 



ONOMATOPCEIA IN LANGUAGE. 219 

by the Africans on the Zambesi river to designate a 
sudden violent tornado, with lightning, thunder, and rain, 
who can refuse to recognise here a beautiful imitation of 
the long-continued roll of peals of thunder in a mountain 
district?" 1 But then they would say that in forming such 
words a man acts as a parrot and not as a man ; and in 
the philosophy of human speech we can take no account 
of an element which denies the distinctive character — 
namely, reason — of the being who forms it. It is against 
this view of the part played by the imitative principle of 
our nature in the formation of language that I now submit 
a few observations. 

In treating this matter I shall first state the argu- 
ments in favour of the extensive operation of this prin- 
ciple, which appear to me conclusive, and then shortly 
consider the nature of the objections that have been 
brought against it. But, before making a regular muster 
of the arguments for or against any position, it appears to 
me to be of the utmost consequence to see how the pre- 
sumptions lie. When a man is tried before a jury for a 
special act of felonious appropriation, the fact that he is 
habit and repute a thief, although no part of the evidence 
on which he can be convicted, will certainly operate 
against him to some extent in the minds of the most 
impartial jury. In the same way, it must have been 
observed that in the discussion of the most famous literary, 
scientific, and philosophical questions, there is an under- 
current of presumption of some kind or other, which 
secretly determines which side the reasoner will take, 
more powerfully than all the arguments that are articu- 
lately brought forward, — a presumption of which these 

1 On the Zambesi, Notes of a long Journey. By James Stewart. (Good Words, 
Feb. 1865.) 



220 ON THE PRINCIPLE OF 

arguments are sometimes only the servile satellites. So, 
in the present case, I ask, first, is there any presumption 
why words should not be formed by the human voice, in 
imitation of certain sounds emitted by or connected with 
objects in the external world ? Man has, no doubt, been 
well defined a reasonable, or at least a reasoning animal ; 
but he is no less truly, and no less largely, an imitative 
animal. It may be said that there are more persons in 
the world who can give true pictures of things by word 
or line, than there are who can argue about them soundly; 
for one instance of false portraiture in common conversa- 
tion, you shall have a hundred exhibitions of bad logic. 
From the earliest words and actions of the child to the 
ripest productions of dramatic genius, you have the prin- 
ciple of imitation constantly and intensely at work. Many 
a literary reputation, exercising a powerful sway over 
thousands and tens of thousands of delighted readers, rests 
in a great measure on mimicry, on what may be called a 
sort of parrot work, in the service of reason no doubt, but 
not at all dependent upon any high function of reason 
for its potency or its popularity. It has seldom been 
heard that the most effective mimics are the most pro- 
found reasoners ; and, on the other hand, a profound 
reasoner is often found deficient in that vivid power of 
imitating the striking points of detail which is the strength 
of the popular novelist, and the best spice of convivial 
conversation. There is therefore no presumption against 
the action of this so universal principle in the formation 
of language, but rather the contrary. And if the element 
by which sounds in the external world are signified in 
human speech is itself sound, how should we more natur- 
ally expect the one to express the other, than by some 
sort of imitation, more or less complete, according to the 



ONOMATOPCEIA IN LANGUAGE. 221 

character of the vocal organ ? I go then to nature, pre- 
pared to expect imitative phenomena in human speech ; 
and I find them, not one here and one there, but every- 
where in the richest abundance. Can any one hear the 
English words smash, dash, thump, dumb, squeak, creep, 
clatter, chatter, click-clack, ding-dong, sigh, sob, moan, 
groan, hurry-skurry, skimble-skamble, iviggle-waggle, and 
not believe that these words were framed by the human 
voice, with the express intention, more or less successfully 
realized, of giving a dramatic representation of the thing 
signified ? This is so obvious, that, as already stated, 
Professor Muller has been forced to admit it, to a certain 
extent ; but, at the same time, watches with the sternest 
jealousy that the action of such a principle shall not be 
allowed to travel beyond the narrow precincts of the 
poultry-yard and the pig-sty. But, however he may 
wish to circumscribe the action of the principle, it is quite 
certain that it operates, not only most powerfully in the 
low region here indicated, but that this pictorial power of 
words is one of the most powerful instruments by which 
human speech is made to affect the human imagination, 
and an instrument in the skilful wielding of which one of 
the great merits of a great poet has always been felt to 
consist. When, for instance, Homer says : — 

Aov7rrj(T€v re 7recra)v dpajSfjcre Be rei^a iir avr<Z — 
" With a hollow soundhe smote the ground, and his armour rattled o'er him ;" 

or Goethe — 

" Aus dem hohlen dunklen Thor 
Drdngt sich ein buntes Gewimmel hervor" 

every one feels that the poet, under the influence of the 
rhythmical instinct which is an expression of reason, is 
only using the materials of language for producing an 



222 ON TEE PRINCIPLE OF 

sesthetical effect, on the same imitative principle by which 
these materials themselves were originally framed. And 
we can prove the actual making of words on this principle 
from observation. A happy father calls his child " little 
goo-goo ! " Why ? Because the little creasy- armed, 
chubby-faced Hopeful has a throat, and g is a guttural 
letter ; and, therefore, as naturally as a chicken cries pip, 
pip, the baby sends forth goo-goo, as the first notice of its 
march into the realm of articulate speech ; and the de- 
lighted parent, by the exercise of the parrot faculty, im- 
mediately forms a name for his son, which might have 
remained for ever, as the only name it should get, did not 
the conventional rights of baptism interfere, not to men- 
tion the long prescriptive claim in favour of baby and boy, 
which the labial letters from old Greek and Roman days 
have succeeded in estabnshing against the guttural. For 
I certainly do believe, whatever may be said to the con- 
trary, that the Hebrew word em, the Greek /xala and 
y^\T7)p, the German Amme, and the common English ma , 
pa, and baby, have something to do with the use of the 
labial letters, so natural to the toothless gums of children, 
and so obvious in the cries of certain animals. Of the 
consonants indeed, which brutes use to modify their vocal 
cries, of which the vowel is always the grand element, the 
labials and gutturals, along with the snarling R, the roll- 
ing L, and the sibilant S, seem to be the most common. 
We shall not therefore be surprised to find an ox called 
Bo in Latin, Greek, and Gaelic, or to hear the bellow of 
oxen called fAVfcaadcu in Greek, while the bleat of sheep is 
called /jLTj/caadcu, and the cry of goats in German meckern, 
for which last I do not know that we have a specific word 
in English. And if the Greeks say vkaKrco for the bark of a 
dog, it is not because their language is not mimetic in this 



ONOMATOPOEIA IN LANGUAGE. 223 

case, while ours certainly is, but because vkaKrw is merely 
a lengthened derivative form of the root v\, which is only 
a feebler form of our English hovri, German heulen. In 
the same way, that the letter II in the Greek Kopwvrj, the 
Latin corvus, the Hebrew SIM, and the English crotu, has 
something to do with the sound uttered by that class of 
animals, I shall continue to believe, so long as in the 
world of animated voice neither swallows shall have been 
heard to grunt on the eaves, nor pigs to twitter in the 
sty, nor bulls to mew in Bashan, nor cats to bellow at 
the old English gentleman's fireside. 

Let so much therefore be allowed, — be held as ad- 
mitted, — though not without manifest unwillingness, by 
those who disown the principle we now advocate. But 
now comes the more important question, for the sake of 
which alone the preceding examples have been given, as 
a sort of postulate, rather than as demanding proof. Is 
this all ? If only a few names of animals, and certain 
phenomena in nature always accompanied by sound, are 
to be explained by the principle of pictured articulation, 
we are advanced but a very short way, and the great body 
of the roots of a language, expressing not sounds but 
notions, remains unexplained. When I express the idea 
of thinking in Latin by the root Tried, in Greek by firjr, 
and in Sanscrit by man, what possible connexion can such 
words have with screaming, or grunting, or twittering, or 
with the cry of any unreasoning animal ? For man, as a 
reasoning animal, must have a method of proceeding in 
forming his language, altogether different from the proce- 
dure which would suffice for unreasoning brutes ; his dis- 
course is not only $wvr\, mere voice, but it is X070?, that 
is simply the outside of reason, and expressed in Greek 
(as all the world knows) by the word which likewise 



224 ON THE PRINCIPLE OF 

signifies reason. Depend upon it, all the important roots 
of a language must be notional ; otherwise, we suppose 
man acting without reason, and our philosophy sinks into 
the lowest sensationalism of the French school of the last 
century. 

Now, before answering this argument, I must again 
protest distinctly against the presumption here implied, 
that the assertion that we do anything without the inter- 
vention of conscious notions and ideas is degrading to 
man, and ignores that reason which is his characteristic. 
We eat, drink, sleep, love, hate, dance, fly into sublime 
passions, and write lofty poetry, not without reason, 
indeed, but certainly in nowise by virtue of consciously 
worked out products of reason, called abstract ideas. If 
it should be found, therefore, that certain words denoting 
mental action are only a secondary application of words 
originally painting an outward mechanical action or posi- 
tion, or even a mere sound, I see nothing to be ashamed 
of in the matter. A man may make himself a pig, or 
worse than a pig in many ways, but certainly not merely 
by painting a pig-sty or by ventriloquizing a grunt, or 
even by borrowing a grunt, for the expression of some 
moral or metaphysical idea. The degradation to a reason- 
able being in the matter of language consists, not in the 
borrowing from physical sources, but in not submitting 
the borrowed physical material to a native metaphysical 
treatment. 

This premised, we remark that it is a known tendency 
of language to grow, not by the creation of new roots, 
when they are not necessary, but by a dexterous use of 
the stock already acquired. In harmony with this fact, 
we have a right to suppose that the original framers of 
language having succeeded, by the principle of phonic 



ONOMATOPCEIA IN LANGUAGE. 225 

imitation, in making a vocabulary to express the sounds 
made by animals or sounding bodies, and the related 
names by which these should be known, would not stop 
here, but would proceed to apply the same principle to a 
much wider and more important range of ideas. Nor was 
the stepping-stone far to seek, by which they soon learned 
to pass from the domain of single imitated sounds to 
that of actions generally, and of all sorts of ideas, For 
if we attend to the process of nature, in such cases, we 
shall observe three facts which would necessarily help, 
from the original stock of strictly pictorial words imitating 
mere sounds to work out a large class of words, including 
all the most important verbs, which language in its early 
stages required. The first of these facts is, that most 
actions which attract the notice of men are, in the first 
place, accompanied by certain sounds or noises, which serve 
to indicate the approach, and to express the manner and in- 
tensity of the movement. The second fact is, that between 
sounds and certain feelings and ideas, not accompanied 
by any sound, there are certain strong analogies, such as 
that which the blind man indicated, when he said that he 
thought scarlet colour was like the sound of a trumpet ; 
and these analogies, taken advantage of by the dexterous 
and economic framers of language, would necessarily lead 
to the designation of a number of ideas expressive of noise- 
less vision or touch, by words possessing some vocal and 
audible analogy. The third fact is, that all external im- 
pressions made upon our senses, which, if not the cause, 
are certainly one of the necessary factors of all human 
knowledge, never take place without the production of 
certain pleasant or unpleasant feelings, and a certain affec- 
tion of the nervous system, on which the utterance of 
articulate sound depends ; and as effects always corre- 

p 



226 ON THE PRINCIPLE OF 

spond to causes, it cannot but be that the vocal utterance 
from within educed by any strong impression from with- 
out, shall in some way or other represent the character 
of the source from which it sprang. Let us examine these 
three facts separately, and see to what classes of results in 
the formation of language they unavoidably lead. Take 
the word Kill to begiD with. You ask what connexion 
is there between the sound of this word and the action 
signified ? I reply, that I do not know, because there 
are many words in all languages, derivative both in mean- 
ing and form, whose original type is not now recoverable ; 
but there is another English word, Slay, signifying the 
same thing, the original form of which is the German 
word Schlagen, to strike, and here I distinctly see a phonic 
congruity between the rough action signified and the 
rough word Schlag, by which it is expressed. The act of 
striking is generally accompanied by a hard, sharp noise ; 
and so, hard, sharp syllables, as in the English words, 
knock, rap, are used to express that act. Or take the 
Sanscrit root mar, of which Muller has made so much, 
and who does not see that it expresses something rude 
and harsh, as much as the English word crush, and the 
French word ecraser ? In the same way the root ar, 
signifying to plough, and which appears in the Hebrew 
P!?Kn the earth, as well as in the Greek adverb epafe 
is evidently a phonetic expression of the rough sound of 
earth or gravel when stirred, containing a combination of 
letters which appears in gravel, grain, ypdcjxo, scratch, 
'Xapdaaw, and other the like words. 

In the same way, actions accompanied by slender soft 
sounds are expressed by weak vowels, as to creep, to sneak, 
and to shirk. Is it not also plain, that whether we take 
the Greek KXeirray or the English steal, we find that these 



ONOMATOPCEIA IN LANGUAGE. 227 

words are so formed as to present a dramatic contrast to 
dpird^w and rob, which signify the same kind of abstraction, 
accompanied with violence and noise ? And if you say that 
the Latin fur does not express anything of this kind, I 
thank you for the observation, and reply that the Greek 
verb cj)copd(o, from which fur is derived, does not originally 
imply the silent stealthiness of felonious appropriation, but 
rather the sudden, rude act, by which a thief is appre- 
hended. Contrast with these words the English word 
tumble, and you will observe that the awkward, clumsy, 
hollow roll with which the act of accidental falling is gene- 
rally accompanied, finds expression here to such a degree 
that the words to tumble and to stand seem as much 
opposed to one another as a round rowley-powley pudding 
is to the sharp, thin, clear knife which cuts it. And this 
brings me to my second great fact — Why has the word 
knife a h in it? Why the Gaelic sgian, why the Latin 
culter ? Is this altogether accidental ? Certainly not. 
K is a sharp letter, perhaps the sharpest in the alphabet, 
and therefore in all languages appears in words which 
signify sharpness, as in the Latin word acies, Greek 
cucpos, Sanscrit k&rt, to cut, with which the Latin ccedo, and 
probably the Gaelic cath, a battle. The Greek kotttcd con- 
tains the same initial letter, although from the intrusion 
of the labial ir it is a less perfect word to express a clean, 
sharp stroke than the simple dental which appears in the 
other roots. For the labials, being uttered by rounded, 
unpointed organs, are naturally used to express blunt- 
ness, as the very word blunt, Greek dfifiXvs, plainly proves. 
Hollow vowels and soft consonants will in all cases be 
applied to express the reverse of what is sharp and thin. 
So tundo in Latin is to beat, not sharply, like our word 
rap, but broadly and bluntly, as with a mallet. Hence 



228 ON THE PRINCIPLE OF 

obtundere atlres, to bore a person with talking, to be 
constantly beating, and thumping, and drumming your 
crotchets upon the tympanum of his ear. So, when a 
man's intellect is not very sharp, he is said to be muddled 
or fuddled ; and if muddled is only a verbal form of mud, 
you will easily understand that something soft, broad, 
round, not at all clear, and not very stable, is under- 
stood by the verb as well as by the noun. We thus see 
how not only sound, but everything perceptible to vision 
or to touch — that is to say, the whole range of pheno- 
menal knowledge — comes under the derided principle of 
ovofjuaroTToua ; and if there can be any stronger proof given 
of the unlimited range of articulate sound, in mimetically 
expressing things which have nothing to do with sound, 
the English word mum, for silence, contains that proof. 
M is the labial which most completely closes the lips, and 
sends the breath up through the nose ; hence it appears 
in the Latin mutus, the Greek jivw for closing or shutting, 
not the mouth, but the eyes, and in the English dumb, 
which in German is dumm, stupid, because stupid people 
have often the sense to sit silent in company, and thus 
not betray their stupidity. I conclude these illustrations 
of the second of the three great facts by a remark on the 
word stand, previously used. This word, which is a bas- 
tard present, formed from the old past tense, like the 
Alexandrian Greek <tt6kco, has for its root the Sanscrit 
sthd, in Latin stare. Now, any one may see that this 
word stands more firmly on its legs than the word tumble, 
with which we contrasted it. Why is this ? There is no 
firmness or decision in any part of this word, just as in 
the cognate word mumble there is a plain want of deter- 
minative emphasis in the conglomeration of the letters. 
But when I say sta, I bring my teeth together with a 



ONOMATOPCEIA IN LANGUAGE. 229 

decision which shows that I am suiting the word to the 
action, and that the firmness which I exhibit in the 
muscles of my legs is not to be accompanied with any 
looseness in the action of my jaws. And that this is not a 
mere fancy will be obvious to any one who considers the 
wide application which this combination of letters enjoys 
in words expressive of strength and decision in all lan- 
guages. Thus in English, stop, strength, strike, stride, 

Sturdy, Start ; in Greek, arpdyyco, arpecpQ), aTprjvrj^, arpvfyvos, 
aT€fjL{3cD, most of which have their Latin representatives, 
as stringo, strenuus, stipo. So in German, starr, streng, 
stossig ; and many others. There remains now, to com- 
plete the pictorial process by which language is formed, 
the third fact mentioned above — according to which all 
external expressions necessarily affect in a certain way 
the whole nervous system and mental economy, and 
through the motion in the vital spirits thereby produced, 
modify in a corresponding way the articulation of human 
speech. Here we have a different principle altogether, as 
it would appear at first sight, from mere ovoixaroiroda ; 
for to imitate an internal sound, and to express an 
internal feeling, seem not only different, but quite con- 
trary actions. Nevertheless, they are in their effects^ as 
in their origin, substantially one ; and Professor Miiller 
has accordingly put what he calls the Pooh ! pooh ! 
theory as much under his ban as the Bow-wow ! For 
the fact of the matter is, that an interjection, such as 
ah! or oI/jlol, or eheu, and all such vocal expressions of 
pleasure or pain, must, by the laws of vitality, exhibit a 
certain correspondence with the sensations of which they 
are the expression. Thus any oppressive, heavy feeling 
in the chest will naturally cause a slow, protracted, dull 
flow of breath to proceed from the throat. The vowels a 



230 ON THE PRINCIPLE OF 

and co, the diphthongs ai and oi, are exactly such a now 
of breath. Hence the interjections co, at, ot, amplified 
into the verbs co^co, aldfa, olfid^a. 

There is here, therefore, a sort of natural drama 
enacted — a correspondence of the within and without — 
which springs fundamentally out of the same root as the 
ovofxaroirovla proper. When Aristotle called all poetry 
mimetic, he probably meant something of this kind ; for 
while dramatic poetry only is strictly imitative of out- 
ward objects, lyric poetry is dramatically expressive of 
inward feelings ; and to this the Bow-wow and the Pooh ! 
pooh! departments of early word-making plainly corre- 
spond. 

If we now inquire what the objections are that are 
brought against these facts, indicative of the operation 
of the pictorial principle in the world of vocal utterance, 
we find that they require no very laboured refutation, 
but resolve themselves into a few misunderstandings and 
prejudices, which a single touch can brush aside. In the 
first place, if it ever was asserted by any writer that all 
the presently existing roots in any language are onomato- 
poetic, and that all current words are to be explained 
on this principle alone, with such assertion I have nothing 
to do. I only maintain that the original stock of which 
language was made up consisted of such roots, and that a 
great proportion of them, after the changes of thousands 
of years, bear their origin distinctly on their face. I do 
not say, however, that all the words now existing in a 
language are to be dealt with on the supposition that 
they contain some pictorial element of the original phonic 
drama of human speech. Syllables are like sixpences, and 
are apt to be rubbed down in the course of time, til] their 
original image and superscription can no more be traced. 



ONOMATOPCEIA IN LANGUAGE. 231 

Besides, as in the Greek language the word dSeA^o'?, 
signifying uterinus, or born of the same womb, took the 
place of (frpdrcDp, which no doubt originally was used as 
frater in Latin, bhrdtar in Sanscrit, and brother in Eng- 
lish, so many of the oldest dramatically significant roots 
of language may have been replaced by secondary roots, 
in which the real character that belonged to the first 
pictorial roots is lost. I do not therefore deny that equus 
may come from the root ashu to be swift, and a horse 
signify the swift animal ; and though I have no doubt 
that bo, an ox, is merely a human imitation of the bovine 
sound, I by no means insist that all animals should have 
received their names from the cries which they make. I 
only say that, in the original formation of language, this 
was one of the simplest and most obvious methods of 
designation, and a method that extended a great deal 
further than superficial observation might lead the modern 
speculator to believe. 

As little can I see why Professor Mtiller should feel it 
his duty to declare war wholesale against onomatopoeia 
in language, because on this or the other occasion some 
men have handled it wildly, and ridden rough-shod with 
it over Grimm's law, and the whole body of ascertained 
facts with regard to phonic transmigrations and transmu- 
tations. A man may talk ingenious nonsense on any 
branch of philological science with the utmost ease, in the 
teeth of Grimm's law, or even with the help of it ; but 
that great principle of interlingual change has nothing to 
do with the question how roots, variable according to 
certain laws of phonic change, were originally formed. 
The Sanscrit pitar may become the English father, and 
the Scotch f aether, without touching the question whether 
PA and MA have anything to do with imitation by 



232 ON THE PRINCIPLE OF 

parents of the first untutored labial utterances of a child. 
Finally, I must be allowed to express my conviction that 
I apprehend the opposition to onomatopoeia arises in the 
minds of some speculators partly from a certain horror 
of a sort of merely animal element in the creation of 
language, which in ancient times had found acceptance 
with the low sensuous philosophy of Epicurus, 1 and 
partly, so far as the Germans are concerned, from a cer- 
tain instinct in them which leads them to prefer what is 
remote to what is obvious, what is conceptional to what 
is sensational, what is fanciful to what is real, what is 
mystical to what is plain. If they blame us, not unjustly 
altogether, for having no ideas in our scholarship, we may 
with equal reason retort that they have too many, and 
use them often with a wild ingenuity, rather than with a 
sober discretion. If we do not make such brilliant dis- 
coveries as they do beyond the flaming walls of the uni- 
verse, we do not, on the other hand, so often fail to see 
what lies directly before our nose. The same national habit 
of thought which led Forchhammer to find in the Iliad a 
geological account of the struggle betwixt land and water 
in the Troad, and leads Professor Muller to discover in 
the same great historic tradition a mythological fight be- 
tween light and darkness, seems to determine the posi- 
tion of this distinguished philologer, in reference to the 
original formation and growth of roots in language. How 
they were formed he nowhere tells us ; he does not pre- 
tend to know ; but of one thing he feels assured, that 
there is more of mystery in the matter than the easy 
mimicry of natural sounds can explain. " Are not Abana 
and Pharpar rivers of Damascus ? may I not wash in 

1 Muller, vol. ii. p. 87, quotes a gested his soubriquet of the Bow-wow 
passage of Epicurus as having sug- theory. 



OXOMATOPCEIA IN LANGUAGE. 233 

them and be clean ? " He will have nothing to do with 
word-painting, because it is too simple a process, seems to 
deal with facts rather than with ideas, and is not at all 
mysterious. For my own part, I think all is mysterious 
with language in one sense, nothing in another. It is as 
natural for men to speak as for birds to sing and foun- 
tains to flow ; and that, when they did speak, they spoke 
originally from the imitation of natural sounds, and a 
cunning adaptation of the expressive power of the audible 
element, not only to things audible, but also to things 
visible and tangible, I shall continue to believe till some 
principle shall be propounded that may explain all known 
facts in a manner equally obvious and satisfactory. 

I have only to say in conclusion, that my faith in 
imitation as the great principle in the formation of the 
original stock of human speech is not in any degree 
affected by the vexed question whether man was originally 
created full-grown or a baby, whether he made language 
for himself, or got it, as some think there is a peculiar 
piety in imagining, ready-made from the Deity. I do 
not believe that Adam got language ready-made from his 
Creator, for the very plain reason that we get nothing 
ready-made from the Creator, but we make it ourselves 
after a fashion, by the indwelling power of His infinite 
virtue and grace, who is never far from the meanest of 
His creatures. But even if the Supreme Being did make 
a present to our primal sire of a ready-made language 
(though I think this contrary to the words of Moses in 
Genesis ii. 19), still the fact remains that the grand vocal, 
organism so presented bears on its front the most evident 
marks of an onomatopoetic or imitative construction. 
Those, therefore, who hold that God made human lan- 
guage must maintain that He made it on the same 



234 ON ONOMATOPOEIA IN LANGUAGE. 

principle on which I maintain that man made it ; for the 
facts are undeniable, and surely it cannot be more pious 
to suppose that the Father of all men coined words for 
the use of His reasonable children in a manner altogether 
arbitrary, rather than on the principle of a reasonable 
congruity, and a beautiful adaptation. 



ON THE SPAETAN CONSTITUTION AND THE 
AGEAEIAN LAWS OF LYCUEGUS. 

The peculiar institutions and laws which go under 
the name of Lycurgus — in some respects a wonder and 
a problem to the ancients themselves — have in recent 
times received a very full and detailed discussion from 
some of the most distinguished scholars of Germany and 
England. Foremost among these, of course, is to be men- 
tioned Ottfried Miiller, in his great work on the Dorians ; 
then, particularly, the historico-archaeological disquisitions 
of G F. Hermann and Schoemann ; with the admirable 
summing-up the results of these investigations in the 
historical works of Curtius and Duncker. In our own 
country, after the solid and substantial substructure of 
Thirlwall, ground was broken by Dr. Arnold in one of the 
notes to his Thucydides, and the views there set forth 
were carefully sifted, and the whole question stated with 
complete originality and independence by the late Sir 
George C. Lewis in an essay in the Cambridge Philological 
Museum. After this, Mr. Grote, in the second volume of 
his great historical work, propounded his views on the 
Spartan institutions generally, with great originality and 
boldness, and specially on the famous Agrarian laws. 
After such labours of such men, it seems not unreasonable 



236 ON THE SPARTAN CONSTITUTION 

to think that we may have now arrived at some certain 
and indisputable conclusions, on which those who read 
Aristotle, Isocrates, and Xenophon some two thousand years 
ago, could only have very misty apprehensions. It is the 
intention of this discourse, accordingly, shortly to review 
the results which, in this most interesting field of archaeo- 
logical research, we seem to have arrived at ; and in doing 
so, the method which I shall adopt is to state shortly, in 
the first place, the undisputed points in reference to the 
Spartan Constitution — that is, such points as all well- 
instructed scholars, being men of sound judgment, and 
not hunters after novelty, are now agreed on ; and in the 
second place, to discuss in detail one of the most charac- 
teristic of the Spartan institutions, which is still lying 
under the severe ordeal of Mr. Grote's sceptical reproba- 
tion, and which, therefore, cannot be considered as undis- 
puted among European scholars. 

Among the undisputed points I notice the fol- 
lowing : — 

1. The political constitution of Sparta was a broad 
aristocracy, limited to some extent by regal rights and 
usages, but in no degree modified by popular influence in 
the modern, or even in the Roman or Athenian, sense of 
that term. By a broad aristocracy, I mean a large cor- 
poration of privileged proprietors, varying from 10,000 to 
2000, with a monopoly of political power, exercised indeed 
by different individuals in different degrees, but altogether 
exclusive of the great mass of the population, who were 
politically null, as much, or rather a great deal more than 
the unenfranchised class in this country, because they 
were in no sense recognised as members of the body poli- 
tic, were never appealed to even in the most distant way, 
and had no influence of any kind in public affairs. This 



AND THE AGRARIAN LAWS OF LYCURGUS. 237' 

broad aristocracy was, in fact, the whole Spartan people, 
who, as Dr. Arnold properly expressed it, were " a nation 
of nobles/' — a brotherhood of privileged warriors, perma- 
nently encamped in a country whose native population 
they treated as a nullity, as much as the laity is ignored 
by the clergy of the Romish church. The only limitation 
to which the great power of this aristocracy was subject 
is found in the influence of the kings ; and this, connected 
as it was with the great element of religion and the 
important functions of war, must, when assisted by the 
weight of personal character, have often been considerable. 
Nevertheless, monarchy in Lacedsemon, weakened as it 
was by the general strength and breadth of the aristo- 
cracy, and also by the early splitting of the undivided 
Homeric kingship into two — itself the strongest proof of 
the great strength of the old aristocracy — never could 
have been in a position to stamp a permanently distinc- 
tive character on the constitution. Its proper type always 
was aristocracy : a " close, unscrupulous, and well-obeyed 
oligarchy," according to Mr. Grote, if any person prefers 
this phraseology. 

2. The Spartan privileged class — that is, the whole 
Spartan people, so far as the rights of citizenship were 
concerned — were wont to meet for the management of 
public affairs in two bodies : the one general, called 
eKfcXrjo-ta, of which the members, though select as respects 
the whole population, might be called a Srjfios or 7r\rjdo<>, 
as respects the more select body chosen out of their mem- 
bers ; the other the yepovala, or senate of elders, an elec- 
tive body chosen by the general mass from the members 
of their own body, of the greatest social weight and influ- 
ence, being not less than sixty years of age. This yepovaia 
may just be regarded as a standing committee of the 



238 ON THE SPARTAN CONSTITUTION 

privileged classes, constantly renovated from the general 
mass by a law of merit and seniority, and intrusted with 
the exclusive right of discussing all important public 
questions, and proposing all legislative measures in the 
first place. In this body, therefore, — as any person prac- 
tically acquainted with the working of political machinery 
will at once divine — lay the real power of the government 
in Lacedsemon : at least when the constitution acted nor- 
mally, and was not disturbed, as it was liable to be, either 
by the arbitrary power of the ephors— of which anon — or 
by the preponderant personality of an energetic monarch. 
As for the larger assembly — the eKKXrjo-ta, though by the 
theory of the constitution possessing the supreme power 
in the last resort — exactly after the Homeric type, so 
familiarly known from the amusing scene in Iliad, u. — yet 
it played a very subordinate part in Spartan politics, and 
makes little figure in Greek history, manifestly because its 
interests and feelings were represented by its own best 
members, who regularly passed into the yepovala at the 
very age when their weight as public counsellors had 
reached its acme. An opposition between the two divi- 
sions of the Spartan privileged class, such as exists in our 
country between the House of Commons and the House of 
Lords, never did exist, and never could exist ; because the 
Spartan lower-house was in fact a house of nobles, and the 
upper-house was only a select standing-committee of the 
lower-house. Anything, therefore, like popular or demo- 
cratic assemblies, in our sense of the word, anything like 
hostile parties within the mass of the governing body, 
anything in the shape of popular measures, popular elo- 
quence, and champions of popular rights, was altogether 
unknown in Sparta. In this regard, Professor Curtius 
does not overstate the matter when he says that, " though 






AND THE AGRARIAN LAWS OF LYCURGUS. 239 

the Spartan people had no laws or public measures of any 
kind thrust upon them without their concurrence, yet, as 
a rule, they did not govern ; they were governed." For 
this reason, in the annals of their public life we hear of 
no Olympian Pericles, no brilliant Alcibiades, no impetuous 
Demades, no terrible Demosthenes, not even a correct 
and polished, well-balanced, well-washed, well-anointed, 
well-combed, well-brushed, and altogether well-bred Iso- 
crates. They had no politica] literature. 

The ephors, who, like the Roman tribunes, from small 
beginnings rose to a power that often overshadowed the 
kings, and even overrode the senate, have a very mys- 
terious aspect to the student who first begins to look into 
the details of the Spartan government machine. But, on 
a little consideration, now that all the available evidence 
has been carefully collected, it appears to me that there 
cannot be the slightest doubt as to the true origin of the 
extraordinary authority which, at certain periods, they 
exercised in public affairs. The ephoralty arose from the 
necessity of providing a field for the energies of ambitious 
and adventurous young Spartans in the time of peace. 
The law that no person should become a senator till the 
ripe and safe age of sixty was for purposes of aristocratic 
conservation unquestionably a very wise one. But even 
in the most firmly-compacted aristocracies there are com- 
bustible and explosive elements which must be provided 
for ; and these elements exist nowhere so strong as in the 
hearts of young men of talent and energy. Now, in our 
country, the House of Commons presents exactly the sort 
of arena which is best adapted at once to gratify the 
ambition and test the capacity of such active spirits. But 
in Sparta, as we have seen, the ifc/cXTjala could perform no 
such functions ; therefore, instead of public speaking and 



240 ON THE SPARTAN CONSTITUTION 

parliamentary tactics, a sort of overseership and censor- 
ship — first in smaller, and then gradually extending to 
more important matters — was laid open to the adventur- 
ous and ambitious among the young Spartans, in which 
field of executive activity they might blow off their 
steam, in time of peace, and feel that they wielded a 
power in certain important matters which not even the 
king or the senate could treat with contempt. A free 
career being thus laid open to the young men and the less 
influential aristocracy, the eKKKrjcria was in all respects 
qualified to play that acquiescent and innocent part which 
it played in Spartan history. It became, in fact, politi- 
cally null ; not because it had no rights, but because 
there was no need for exercising its rights. In this way 
it came about that Sparta, for the space of four hundred 
years, exhibited to wondering Greece the most notable 
pattern of a stable conservative government, without any 
disturbing opposition, that ancient history knew. In 
fact, with such a perfectly satisfied broad aristocracy, if 
there arose at any time any opposition to the government, 
it was either in the shape of absolute mutiny and revolt 
among the helots, and unrecognised subject-classes, or in 
the shape of conspiracy amongst some of the Spartans 
proper, who had lost their franchise by default, that is, 
either by not having conformed to the social regulations 
of Lycurgus, or by not possessing the necessary property 
qualification, and who were therefore no longer ojioioi, 
peers among peers. Of such a conspiracy we have a well- 
known example in the case of Cinadon, which took place 
at the commencement of the reign of Agesilaus, B.C. 398. 
The proceedings connected with the quashing of these 
mutinies and conspiracies reveal to us the weak point of 
the Spartan government. A numerous subject-population, 



AND THE AGRARIAN LAWS OF LYCURGUS. 241 

absolutely without political rights, can be governed only 
by fear, and is kept in check, partly by that unity of 
counsel and action which belongs to all well-organized 
governing bodies, partly by a system of secret police, and 
secret execution, in that arbitrary form which is always 
the plague-spot of the government which employs it, and 
which, in the case of Sparta, was distinguished by acts of 
bold unscrupulousness and cold-blooded atrocity, surpassed 
by nothing that modern records present in the annals of 
Rome, Naples, Paris, or Madrid. 

On the whole, therefore, we see, that notwithstanding 
the confessedly beneficial effect of the severe physical and 
moral training to which the young Spartans were subjected, 
the results of their political system were not such as to 
present a purely aristocratic government in a particularly 
attractive light. The Spartan system made good soldiers, 
drilled and maintained in notable efficiency, a small compact 
people of privileged proprietors brave in the use of their 
swords ; but it altogether failed to produce a great people. 
In external form only, to the superficial eye the Spartan 
constitution exhibits that mixed form of government com- 
posed of the three natural elements of king, lords, and 
commons, which the wisest of the ancients looked on as 
the best possible government ; but there was, in reality, 
no people, no liberty, no movement, and no enterprise. 
What we find instead of a great, strong, free, and happy 
people, is a very manly and vigorous, severely-trained, 
well-disciplined, and thoroughly effective aristocracy ; but 
an aristocracy altogether unfit to go beyond the narrow 
territorial limits within which it grew up, and no more 
qualified to produce the highest type of cultivated 
humanity, than the institutions of Plato's paper republic, 
the red-tape and pipe-clay ordinances of last century 

Q 



242 ON THE SPARTAN CONSTITUTION 

Berlin bureaucracy, or the religious exercitations of a 
Jesuits' college in Madrid or Rome. 

So much seems undisputed. I shall now notice two 
points of considerable importance in the Spartan political 
and social organization, which, considering the weighty 
names who have advocated opposite views in regard to 
them, must be looked on as yet sub judice in the world of 
learned research. The first of these points relates to the 
true nature and character of those Spartans who were 
called opoioi, Equals or Peers. With regard to these, the 
late Sir G. C. Lewis, in the Philological Review (vol. ii. p. 
64), has advanced a theory that they were in all proba- 
bility " an aristocratical class within the body of the Spar- 
tans who were much employed in public offices, and had 
great influence with the government, originally, perhaps, 
selected for their merit ; and afterwards their rank be- 
came hereditary." This theory has been controverted by 
Professor Schoemann, in an able paper in his Opuscula 
Academica ; and without going into the detail of the 
argument, I shall only here state generally, that the pas- 
sages in which mention is made of these ofiotoi in the 
Greek classics are few and incidental, and that, after a 
careful examination of them all, I have come to the con- 
clusion that there is no sufficient ground in the existing 
authorities for the theory advanced by the learned English 
statesman ; and that, if we take the evidence as we have 
it, without adding to it in the way of conjecture, we must 
just simply say that the peers were all the Spartans who 
had not lost their property or other qualification. Equality, 
indeed, and a sort of democracy within themselves, was an 
essential characteristic of society in Sparta — la-ovofila and 
8r)/jLOKpa,Tta irapd a^iai in the very words of Isocrates 
(Panath. 270, c.) ; and the formation of a class of superior 



AND THE AGRARIAN LAWS OF LYCURGUS. 24 3 

hereditary privileged peers, in our sense of the word, is 
not to be assumed without the strongest reasons, in the 
face of the plain presumptions to the contrary, arising out 
of the whole constitution of oligarchy in Sparta. 

But the most important of the disputed points of the 
Spartan social organization is that which relates to the 
Agrarian Laws. On this subject the great English his- 
torian of Greece, Mr. Grote, has lately advanced a theory, 
which, as it runs counter not only to all the ancient autho- 
rities, but to the weight of learned opinion in Germany, 
well deserves the serious consideration of English scholars ; 
the more so that, so far as I can see, the weight justly due 
to that learned gentleman s authority has had a tendency 
to procure a ready admission to certain brilliant sceptical 
novelties, enunciated by him, in quarters where a decided 
opposition, on strong conservative principles, was rather to 
have been expected ; and thus the student of ancient his- 
tory comes suddenly upon the somewhat singular pheno- 
menon, that on one point at least of Hellenic research, 
while such Teutonic excavators as Ottfried Mtiller, C. T. 
Hermann, Schoemann, Curtius, and Diincker are mar- 
shalled on the side of ancient tradition and authority, in 
Oxford a learned professor of ancient history 1 can declare 
that Mr. Grote has proved, with " irresistible force," that 
all we have hitherto been taught of Agrarian laws in 
ancient Sparta is a hallucination and a dream. The two 
nations thus appear to be changing sides ; the compatriots 
of Niebuhr have become historical conservatives, while the 
countrymen of Clinton seem eager to blow away all early 
history into symbolism and myth. The mere suddenness 
and completeness of this rebound might seem to indicate 
that the matter had not been duly sifted, and that Mr. 

1 Eawlinson's Herodotus, vol. iii. Appendix I. 



244 ON THE SPARTAN CONSTITUTION 

Grote's theory lias been received more from the weight due 
to his authority, than from an impartial consideration of 
the evidence. So at least it appears to me ; and it shall be 
my object in what remains of this discourse to state in detail 
the real significance of the ancient authorities on the sub- 
ject, and how far they are from giving any countenance to 
the ingenious, but, in my opinion, baseless theory of Mr. 
Grote. Let it be noted, however, that when I speak of 
Agrarian laws as an integral part of the Lycurgean organi- 
zation, I do not mean to assert that the legislator intro- 
duced these laws for the first time any more than he in- 
troduced the kingship or the senate. It belongs to God 
to create ; the highest of mortal legislators can only use 
existing materials. All I say is, that, on a due considera- 
tion of all the ancient authorities, which are our only safe 
guides in this matter, Agrarian laws must be acknowledged 
as, from the earliest times, part and parcel of that singu- 
lar social organization which bore the name of Lycurgus. 
In Lycurgus, as a man and a lawgiver, and not as a myth, 
a symbol, or an indefinite somebody or anybody, for 
reasons that I cannot here state at length, I most 
potently believe ; but I am not in the slightest degree 
concerned to maintain that all the characteristic Spartan 
laws and customs on which his name was stamped, really 
proceeded originally from him; much less that we are 
bound to accept, as his actual scheme, every minute 
detail of his legislation as presented to us in the highly- 
finished, or, as we might say, cunningly cooked accounts 
of late historians. 

Let us now examine Mr. Grote's position. His denial 
of the Spartan Agrarian laws, as a historical fact, proceeds 
mainly on the assertion, that, while these laws are either 
ignored or contradicted by all the earlier and more trust- 



AND THE AGRARIAN LAWS OF LYCURGUS. 245 

worthy witnesses, they are asserted only by one or two recent 
and less creditable authorities. This statement of the case 
is certainly very plausible. It is pretty much as if he had 
said, all the eye-witnesses knew nothing about the matter 
in question, only hearsay asserts it. But the nature of 
the existing authorities does not allow us to dispose of 
the question in this way. There are no eye-witnesses in 
the case : the oldest cited, viz., Plato, lived at least four 
hundred years after the great Spartan lawgiver ; and in 
such circumstances mere priority in point of date is not 
of itself sufficient to outweigh other and more material 
considerations. Nay, even in a common question of legal 
evidence, as every lawyer knows, the mere nearness of a 
witness to the time in which a disputed fact took place 
will not of itself be able to secure to his testimony any 
peculiar preference. I shall, therefore, adopt what appears 
to me the more true method of stating the evidence in a 
historical question of this kind. I shall first cite those 
authors who give a distinct and deliberate testimony to 
the Spartan Agrarian laws, and then inquire how far their 
evidence is contradicted by any testimony to the contrary. 
In the first place, we have Polybius, a Greek, a native of 
the Peloponnesus, and living in the times immediately 
following the Agrarian agitations of the famous Spartan 
kings, Agis and Cleomenes. Of his weight and judgment 
in political matters no one ever expressed a doubt ; and 
his testimony to the existence of equal allotments of land 
in Sparta, as one of the most characteristic elements of the 
Lycurgean legislation, is given in a passage (vi. 45) where 
he expressly discusses political constitutions, and draws a 
direct contrast between the Cretan and Spartan systems 
on this very point. A more valuable witness, therefore, 
on such a matter, could not be cited. Then we have 



246 ON THE SPARTAN CONSTITUTION 

Plutarch, in his life of Lycurgus, — an author whom it is 
easy to call an " old wife/' but who, in fact, was one of 
the best-read men of his day, and a man of remarkable 
good sense and sound judgment. No doubt he tells 
many stories which, like all historical anecdotes, may have 
been improved in the telling, or even invented to give point 
to popular opinion : unquestionably also, his philosophy 
of history, exhibiting the whole Spartan constitution as 
jumping ready-made out of the brain of Lycurgus, is far 
from profound ; but it remains to be proved that he has 
ever given false representations of great historical charac- 
ters, or lightly stated any important historical fact. On 
the contrary, I feel convinced, that, before he sat down to 
write his life of Lycurgus, he had read Aristotle's famous 
work lie pi IIoXiTeicov now lost ; and that the very distinct 
evidence given by him as to the Spartan Agrarian laws 
must be regarded not as his testimony merely, but as the 
result of the ivhole mass of historical evidence, including, 
of course, Aristotle, which he had consulted on the subject. 
And here we must observe, that in talking of the Spartan 
Agrarian laws, we are dealing with a matter which, if it 
was not a mere figment, as Mr. Grote will have it, must 
have been as well known in ancient Greece as it is known 
in modern Europe that the government of the Romish 
church is monarchical, and that the principle of ecclesias- 
tical democracy is represented by the Presbyterians in 
Scotland. Facts of this kind are far too deep-fixed in 
their roots, and far too wide-spread in their branches, 
to be either invented or ignored. If they are invented,, 
they will not be believed ; if they are believed, it is 
because they cannot be ignored. To me, therefore, the 
testimonies of two such writers as Polybius and Plutarch, 
expressly handling the subject, and summing up as they 



AND THE AGRARIAN LAWS OF LYCURGUS. 247 

do the whole historical tradition of antiquity, are quite 
sufficient to establish the existence of Agrarian laws in 
ancient Sparta, although they were not supported by any 
other evidence. But this is far from being the case. 
Isocrates, in his Panathenaic oration, where a contrast is 
distinctly drawn between Athenian and Lacedaemonian 
institutions, talks expressly (270 c.) of the equality of lots 
in land, which characterized the Dorians when they first 
settled hi the Peloponnesus, rrjs %wp<x? ^? 7rpoar\icei laov eyeiv 
k'fcao-Tov ; and Plato, in the third book of his laws (684 d.) 
manifestly alludes to the same state of things. I con- 
ceive, therefore, that we have the concurrent testimony of 
historians, orators, and philosophers, asserting or implying 
the state of things in reference to the distribution of land 
in Sparta, which Mr. Grote, with such " irresistible force," 
is said to have disproved. What, then, are the autho- 
rities by which we are called on to consider that he has 
successfully rebutted the weight of the positive evidence 
just adduced ? His great authority, manifestly, more nar- 
rowly looked at, in fact, his only authority, is Aristotle — 
a name heavy enough, perhaps, to outweigh all others, if 
only it shall turn out that, in the present case, his evidence 
has been duly sifted and justly weighed. But how stands 
the fact ? The great philosopher s great book TJepi JJoXl- 
reicov on " political constitutions," which, as a matter of 
course, contained a detailed account of Spartan laws and 
customs, exists, as we have already stated, no more ; and 
we have only his work on the theory of politics, in which 
some points of the Spartan polity are incidentally discussed. 
These discussions occur principally in the Second Book ; 
and it is here that Mr. Grote finds a notable passage 
(ii. 6) asserting not the equality, but the extraordinary 
and abnormal inequality, of property in the Spartan 



248 ON THE SPARTAN CONSTITUTION 

territory. Now, in order to understand this, we must 
consider carefully the whole plan and scope of the book on 
Politics, and interpret the Second Book with reference to 
that plan. The work is purely a theoretical investigation, 
with the view of discovering the aplarr] TrokiTela, or what 
we call the "ideal commonwealth;" and in order to 
give a proper starting-point for such an investigation, 
the philosopher has to prove in the first place that no 
best republic already exists either in theory or fact ; that 
the intellectual projections of Plato and the realized work 
of Lycurgus are equally at fault ; and therefore that 
the speculations of the philosopher are not foreclosed ; 
he may safely go on reasoning out the scheme of a best 
polity, without being liable to the charge of actum agere. 
This character of the Second Book sufficiently explains its 
somewhat ungracious attitude, that of systematic fault- 
finding. The writer has merely to show that the various 
constitutions which he passes under review have, as a 
matter of fact, proved to be failures in certain points, and 
his case is made out. Accordingly, to use a vulgar phrase, 
he sets himself — and does it with manifest gusto as an 
Athenian — to pick holes in the coat of Lycurgus ; and has 
no difficulty in finding that the Spartan women, so often 
celebrated for their patriotism and their domestic virtues, 
are in fact the most extravagant, the most blushless, and 
the most domineering ladies in Greece ; and that the 
lands, instead of being fairly divided, are accumulated in 
the hands of a very few proprietors (which accumulation 
all the ancient philosophers looked on as a great social 
evil), and these proprietors principally women. And in 
accounting for this abnormal state of things, he goes on 
to accuse the legislator of inconsistency, in having allowed 
the free disposal of landed property by testament, while 






AND THE AGRARIAN LAWS OF LYCURGUS. 249 

he forbade it by sale inter vivos. Now this way of 
stating the matter, not only does not seem to me to deny, 
but rather plainly to imply, the existence of an equal 
division of landed property in the early days of the Spartan 
ascendency. The Stagyrite speaks in this whole book of 
what Sparta had become in his day, not of what it was 
in the days of Lycurgus. He did not require to tell his 
readers what everybody knew, that since the days of 
Lysander, Sparta was no more like what it had been under 
Lycurgus, than king Solomon of Palestine was like Joshua 
or Gideon. Whatever Lycurgus might have wished to 
make of Lacedaemon, he had not achieved it : the boasted 
Spartan constitution, which Plato and Xenophon had 
lauded, was a manifest failure ; and whoever felt inclined 
to set up that as a model of the aplarr) iroXirela was con- 
tradicted by the strong staring fact, worth a whole 
waggon of arguments. 

The evidence of Aristotle being thus disposed of, Mr. 
Grote's case on the authorities, according to my judg- 
ment, completely breaks down. The other witnesses 
whom he cites, either say nothing at all on the point, or 
say something quite different from what Mr. Grote sup- 
poses. That there occurs occasional mention of rich men 
in Sparta, as well as elsewhere, is nothing to the purpose. 
The Spartan magnates, in the days of Herodotus and 
Thucydides, might have acquired wealth in various ways, 
altogether independently of the original equality of the 
landed lots, on which the exercise of the rights of citizen- 
ship depended. The mere silence of Herodotus in a pas- 
sage (lib. i.), where he is only mentioning Lycurgus in 
the most incidental way, can have no weight ; and the 
defects in the slight treatise of Xenophon are so manifest, 
that any mere omissions can prove nothing. The testi- 



250 ON THE SPARTAN CONSTITUTION 

mony of Isocrates in another passage of the oration 
already quoted (287 b.) has not the slightest bearing on 
the question ; for there the orator is talking not of the 
original tenure of landed property under the Lycurgean 
institutions, but of the freedom of Sparta, during a long 
course of four hundred years, from violent Agrarian 
revolutions and other social convulsions — a freedom to 
be attributed principally, after the general conservative 
character of the government, to that original equality in 
the division of property, which rendered future Agrarian 
agitation unnecessary. 

If these observations are correct, the result of our ex- 
amination manifestly is, that there is no historical evidence 
whatever against the Spartan Agrarian laws ; and if Mr. 
Grote's sceptical rejection is to be accepted, it must be 
based on grounds of internal improbability, which render 
all external assertion superfluous. It remains now that 
we look a,t the matter shortly from this point of view. 

Agrarian laws have not been fashionable in modern 
times — least of all in Great Britain. They are contrary 
to our British instinct of individual liberty, and our 
national habit of leaving no more power than is absolutely 
necessary in the hands of the central government. We 
are apt to look upon them, consequently, as either ideal 
or revolutionary ; but, though some valuable discoveries 
have been made in history since the time of Niebuhr, by 
interpreting the past through the present, nothing could 
lead to greater mistakes in the philosophy of ancient 
social life, than the supposition that it was in all respects 
like our own. On the contrary, it is certain that in many 
respects it was as much as possible unlike. It is in the 
contrasts, not in the identities, which ancient history 
presents, that great part, both of its charm, and of its 



AND THE AGRARIAN LAWS OF LYCURGUS. 251 

instructive virtue, consists. The ancient Dalmatians, we 
are told by Strabo (vii. 315), made a general redi vision 
of their lands every eighth year. Are we to disbelieve 
this, merely because such an Agrarian custom appears to us 
altogether preposterous, unjust, and impolitic ? If so, we 
must take up David Hume's position, and believe nothing, 
however well attested, that is contrary to the results of 
that very undefined range of induction which we call our 
experience. We shall, therefore, say that there is nothing 
improbable in the idea that an ancient legislator may 
have assigned his citizens equal lots of land, however 
much such a measure may be contrary to English in- 
stincts and modern practices. And if we look at the real 
position of the Dorians as a comparatively small body of 
invaders encamped in a hostile country which they held 
in subjugation, we shall see the strongest argument in 
favour of the existence of an Agrarian law such as was 
popularly attributed to Lycurgus. An uncontradicted 
tradition asserts that after conquering the Peloponnesus, 
the position of the Dorians was for a considerable period 
extremely uncomfortable. They had the utmost difficulty 
in holding their ground. Now, in such circumstances, 
nothing could be more dangerous to the common cause 
than those feuds and jealousies among themselves which 
are wont to arise from an unequal distribution of property. 
As a nation of warriors, who had acquired this new terri- 
tory by the sword, they had been exposed to common 
perils, and were entitled to a common reward. But 
against this law of equal natural right to the conquered 
territory, the cupidity and violence of individual chiefs 
would no doubt prevail ; and the discontent hereby 
caused would breed exactly that state of public danger, 
in which the safety of all would be consulted by giving 



252 ON THE SPARTAN CONSTITUTION 

an unlimited power of arbitration to some influential per- 
son on whom all could rely. Such a national arbiter in 
matters between debtor and creditor, within the strictly 
historical period, was Solon, in Athens ; such an arbiter, 
specially in reference to landed property, I conceive 
Lycurgus to have been, when he is spoken of as the author 
of the Agrarian laws. I do not by any means think my- 
self bound to inquire into the probable correctness of the 
details of these laws as given by Plutarch ; but the fact 
itself carries with it all the probability that the existing 
circumstances, the habits of thought of the ancient mind 
(Miiller, Dor. ii. p. 212, English), and the analogy of cer- 
tain well-known facts in modern history can confer. The 
secularization of church lands at the French revolution, 
and the law of succession to landed property then estab- 
lished, operated practically as an Agrarian law, tending 
both to prevent immense accumulations of property in 
the hands of individuals, and to create among the newly- 
constituted proprietors, a broad, permanent interest in 
the new state of things. An Agrarian law of a different 
kind was that carried out by Baron Stein in Prussia, 
under the pressure of the great national humiliation sub- 
sequent to the battle of Jena in 1808. On the whole, I 
am so far from seeing any improbability in the alleged 
equality of lots, which, according to the universal testi- 
mony of the ancients, characterized the Spartan public 
economy, that it appears to me to be only a necessary 
part of their general system of equality and brotherhood, 
within certain well-known and narrowly-drawn limits of 
aristocratic privilege. Among a race of proprietors as 
unequal as the present English nobility and gentry, a 
common mess, the avo-alnov, so characteristic of Spartan 
life, would have been an impossibility. 



AND THE AGRARIAN LAWS OF LYCURGUS. 253 

With these convictions, I need hardly say that I see 
no need for having recourse to that " new canon of his- 
torical criticism" which Mr. Grote (vol. ii. p. 165, edit. 
1862) brings upon the stage for the sake of solving the 
difficulties connected with the alleged Agrarian law of 
Lycurgus. This canon, which traces the belief in this 
law to the heated enthusiasm of certain interested 
dreamers in the days of Agis iv. and Cleomenes (250 and 
222 B.C.), appears to me merely a special application of 
the thaumaturgic German fashion of creating history out 
of conjectures, against which I think our British instinct 
ought to lead us emphatically to protest. The habit of 
dealing negatively with old national tradition and sup- 
planting it by plausible theories is always flattering to the 
ingenuity of scholars, but affords a very questionable basis 
for anything that can be called history. For myself I do 
not believe that a royal reformer such as Agis, wishing to 
move the people to an acceptance of a great measure of 
Agrarian reform, could do so by appealing to a mere fig- 
ment, the child of yesterday's dream ; but his only hope 
of success must he in his being able to clothe the startling 
aspect of his revolutionary measure with all the attractions 
that belong to the rebrightening of a faded memory deeply 
graven in the traditional consciousness of the people. 
Generally speaking, while I would willingly admit that 
the outer links and nourishes of national tradition are 
often invented, I do most firmly believe the trunk and 
body of any deep-rooted, widely-spread popular belief to 
be a fact, a material fact in the outward fates of the 
nation ; as the soul of it is a moral fact, often the most 
important moral fact in the history of a great people. 
Such facts were the battles of Bannockburn and Drum- 
clog in Scotland ; the Norman conquest in England ; the 



254 ON THE SPARTAN CONSTITUTION, ETC 

legislation of Moses among the Hebrews, and of Lycurgus 
among the Spartans ; the maritime sway of Minos in the 
isles of the iEgean, and the brilliant despotism of the 
Tarquins in early Rome. Facts of this nature, and the 
personalities to which they are bound, possess a tenacious 
vitality in the continued consciousness of a nation, alto- 
gether independent of any scrolls of written record by 
means of which their reality may have been externally 
attested. 



ON THE PKE-SOCKATIC PHILOSOPHY. 

The history of origins is always interesting and 
generally obscure ; but in the case of the early Greek 
philosophy a sufficient number of fragments has been 
saved from the wreck of tradition to enable us to have 
a clear view of the salient doctrines of the pre-Socratic 
thinkers, though not certainly an accurate knowledge of 
the complete organism of their speculation. The pre- 
Homeric poetry of Greece, of the existence of which in 
rich abundance there can be little doubt, can be separated 
from the new organism into which it was worked by the 
genius of Homer, only by a process more or less conjec- 
tural and slippery ; but on some of the most interesting 
and significant utterances of the school of Greek thinkers 
who flourished in Asia Minor, Magna Grecia, and Sicily, 
for the century and a half that preceded Socrates, we are 
able to lay our fingers with as much certainty as on the 
discourses of Socrates himself reported by the pious dis- 
cipleship of Xenophon ; and the fragments which two 
hundred years ago lay scattered and untested, have in 
recent times been so laboriously collected, critically sifted, 
and organically arranged by the diligent, intelligent, and 
sober-minded workers of erudite Germany, that it is in 
the power of every fairly equipped scholar to re-create, in 
a more or less complete form, the main features of pre- 



256 ON THE PBE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 

Socratic speculation. With the aid of the learned works 
of Preller, Karsten, Zeller, 1 to give a rounded complete- 
ness to the information on this subject which we gather 
from Aristotle, Plato, Eusebius, Hippolytus, Clemens, 
Plutarch, and Stobseus, I have set myself to present in 
one broad view whatever of most general human signi- 
ficance and scientific interest seemed to shine clearly 
out from these early speculations ; and the result of my 
labours is the bird's-eye view of pre-Socratic thinking 
which the present discourse contains. 

With regard to the whole of this early period of Greek 
thought two general remarks may be made : first, in refer- 
ence to its locality, that it is more Asiatic than European, 
the Greek colonies of Asia Minor being its cradle ; and 
second, with respect to its character, that in those early 
times all knowledge, thinking, and feeling was less 
specialized than at the present day ; in such fashion 
that, if the things known and speculated on were much 
fewer, the men who knew and speculated on them were 
more complete. In our time the gulf that separates the 
scientific from the metaphysical, the imaginative, and the 
religious man, and all these from the man of business 
and affairs, is often very great, and practically impassable. 
The scholar will have nothing to do with physical science ; 
the student of mind ignores matter ; the dissector of brain 
ignores mind ; and both seem either unable or unwilling 
to bridge over the space that separates the special pro- 
vince of cognition from the general domain of human 
spiritual instincts, aspirations, and emotions. It seems 
indeed the inevitable tendency of the division of labour, 
while it improves and multiplies the product, to narrow 

1 Karsten : PhilosopJi. Grcec. Vet. Reliq. ; Bruxelles, 1830. 
Eitter et Preller: Historia Philos. Grcec. Bom. ; Gothse, 1869. 
Zeller : Gesckichte der Griechischen Philosopliie. 



ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 257 

and to dwarf the producer. The ancient intellect grew 
up more like a rich leafy tree with many branches, 
spreading themselves out towards the sun on all sides ; 
the modern man is taught to live only in a straight line, 
and to extend himself, as J. S. Mill says of Jeremy Ben- 
tham, infinitely in one direction. He thus loses the 
central point of philosophic survey altogether, or at best 
works out only one idea, which he is inclined to impose 
on the universal system of things, and cultivating assidu- 
ously one side of his nature, cheats himself of the beauti- 
ful symmetry and balance of a complete growth. More 
particularly we must observe that the opposition betwixt 
physical science and metaphysical speculation, so common 
in modern times, was not known to the ancients ; their 
physics was always mixed largely with metaphysics ; or 
rather we are now in the habit of treating separately sub- 
jects which then had not begun to be even thought of 
as separate ; the man of physical science was at the same 
time a metaphysical thinker ; the materialist was also a 
spiritualist ; and science stood before men, not naked as 
with the exposures of a cunning dissector, but festooned 
with the flowers of poetry, and fragrant with the breath 
of natural piety. Hence it comes that in Empedocles, for 
instance, we find that complex combination of physician, 
poet, priest, and politician, so difficult for us moderns to 
understand. Nature was constantly speaking to those 
ancient Greek sages in the language of morals ; and 
morals on the other hand did not disdain to use the lan- 
guage of nature. That which had never been divorced 
could not be looked on as antagonistic. 

It is not therefore altogether true — certainly not to 
be taken in a strict and literal sense — when we read that 
Socrates was the father of Moral Philosophy. Pythagoras 

R 



258 ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 

was a great moralist and a pious man more than a hun- 
dred years before him ; the so-called seven wise men, as 
Laertius well notes, were all not merely or mainly specu- 
lative thinkers, but active citizens, and often practical 
statesmen, and so could not avoid making human life, 
and the laws of the social organism, one of their principal 
studies. The social world, in fact, could no more exist 
without moral philosophy in some shape or other, than the 
physical world could grow and blossom without the sun ; 
and the mission of Socrates, therefore, was not so much 
to create a moral philosophy which had never existed 
before, as (1.) to protest against a habit of physico-meta- 
physical speculation, which wasted itself in vague conjec- 
tures, and which in the then state of scientific observation 
could lead to no practical result (Xen. Mem. i. 14, 15) ; 
and (2.) by putting the weapons of an exact logic into 
the hands of thinking men, to teach them how to vanquish 
scepticism on its own battle-field, and to plant morals, as 
practical reason, on the high vantage ground of a demon- 
strative science. This characteristically Greek tendency 
to identify morals with reason, and right action with true 
thinking, appears equally in Xenophon's dialogic reminis- 
cences, and in Plato's argumentative dialogues, as the 
characteristic feature of the Socratic philosophy ; and 
the scientific control of morals by logic is a peculiarity 
marked enough to draw a strong line of distinction be- 
tween the gnomic morality which inspired Homer and 
Hesiod no less than Pythagoras, and the systematically- 
built-up ethics of which Socrates and Plato were the 
architects. 

In making a rapid summation of the results of the pre- 
Socratic thinkers, I shall divide them, according to what 
appear their most distinctive characters, into three classes : 



ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 259 

the hylozoists, the atomists, and the metaphysical or theo- 
logical philosophers. 

I. By the Hylozoists I understand those philosophers 
who found the dpxn or first principle of things in some ex- 
ternal, objective, visible, tangible, material element ; and 
yet they were not materialists in the popular sense of the 
word at all ; for they knew nothing of, and could scarcely 
have considered that idea, so familiar to us, of a dead 
matter as opposed to mind. With them all nature was 
conceived as essentially alive ; "all things/' as Thales 
said,, "are full of gods" (Diog. Laert. i. 27); hence the 
technical term hylozoism, or vitalized matter. With this 
class of thinkers all matter was conceived of as permeated 
and interfused and moulded by a divine and reasonable 
power felt to be everywhere present, but spoken of only 
and mainly under some favourite bodily presentation. 
What the orthodox Romanist believes to have taken place 
by a special miracle through sacerdotal agency in the 
elements of bread and wine consecrated in the mass, this the 
Hellenic hylozoist believed constantly to take place every- 
where by the eternal miracle of Nature, and specially to 
be manifested in the element which he looked upon as most 
entitled to the dignity of dpxn, or original principle. The 
names which fall under this first class are five, viz., Thales, 
Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Empedocles. 

Of all these the most popularly known is Thales ; 
though, so far as speculative significance is concerned, his 
name is to us certainly not the most interesting. The 
familiarity of his name to our modern ears is doubtless 
owing to his historical connexion with the famous names 
of Solon and Croesus, made public property by the pleasant 
pen of Herodotus. His calculation of eclipses also fixes 



260 ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 

him as a notable mark in the history of mathematical 
science ; while his characteristic doctrine that water, or 
rather fluidity, is the ap%n, has perhaps received an acci- 
dental advertisement of wide circulation in the well- 
known initial words of Pindar's Olympian Odes, apio-rov 
fiev vScop. The philosophical value of this maxim is not 
very great ; yet it confessedly announced a principle 
which, so far as it goes, has been confirmed and 
strengthened by the various investigations of modern 
physical science. From the salt wastes of Central Asia to 
the compact ice wedges of the Arctic Ocean, the most 
superficial view of Nature proclaims that, while solidity is 
almost the only thing that seems absolutely dead, fluidity 
is always and everywhere the cradle of life. The myriad- 
moving life of which a drop of water is the sphere has 
long been one of the favourite exhibitions of our micro- 
scopic showmen ; and physiologists and organic chemists 
have been eager to expound to admiring popular audiences 
how much of this " too, too solid flesh," which we call our 
bodies, is really composed of the liquid dew into which 
Hamlet wished that it might dissolve. The fecundity of 
the fishy tribe was another fact of superficial Nature, on 
which Thales is reported to have founded his doctrine ; a 
fact which the minute observations and calculations of 
modern naturalists have brought into most significant 
prominence. Ancient mythology, also, not only in its 
Hellenic, but in many far-distant forms, agreed in testi- 
fying to the great part played by water in the original 
creation of the world. Homer (Iliad, xiv. 201) sang of 
an Olympian dynasty older than Jove, — 

" Ocean the primal father of gods, and Tethys the mother; " 
and with this the Babylonian tradition in Berosus of 



ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 261 

primeval " water and darkness/' and the Hindu Avatar of 
Brahm, as Narayana (Nereus, vepo Nar), strikingly agreed. 1 
The physical truth indicated in these mythologies is dis- 
tinctly stated in the Mosaic record (Gen. i. 3) ; and if 
for the Hebrew phrase, the DNita nn ? or Breath of God, 
we were to substitute the Divine Reason, or X070?, any 
appearance of difference would be removed which to 
superficial observers may now seem to separate the cos- 
mogony of Moses from that of Thales. 

A disciple of Thales was Anaximander, and, like his 
master, a citizen of the flourishing Ionic colony of Miletus. 
In the doctrine of this philosopher that the aireipov is the 
dpxr, we find a certain departure from the general character 
of the class to which he belongs ; for though this aireipov, 
the Infinite, or rather the Undetermined, was something 
external and objective, it differed from the dpxn of Thales, 
and the other teachers of this school, in that it was a some- 
thing neither visible, nor tangible, nor cognoscible by 
human senses in their ordinary action. The aireipov was 
conceived as a sort of indeterminate basis of all existence, 
something, perhaps, like the protoplasm of a distinguished 
living physiologist, containing the possibilities of all that 
may be, but the reality of nothing that is ; an element 
neither water, nor air, nor earth, nor fire, but a common 
matrix out of which they are developed by a process of 
internal differentiation. The only value of this Anaxi- 
mandrian notion seems to lie not certainly in any reality 
which can be proved to belong to it, but rather in the 
truly philosophical principle which it involves, that things 
are not what they seem, and that what the superficial 
observer calls different things, are, when nicely looked 
into, often only different states of the same thing. What 

1 See my Homer, vol. iv., note to the line quoted. 



262 ON THE PRE-S0CRAT1C PHILOSOPHY. 

profound truth lies in this view the frequent presentation 
under the appliances of modern chemistry of the same 
body under the liquid, gaseous, and solid forms, most 
amply demonstrates. Beyond this, the fragments of 
Anaximandrian speculation possess nothing to interest 
the modern thinker ; except only we must by no means 
omit to mention his singular anticipation of the Darwinian 
theory of the descent of man by a process of development 
from the inferior animals. This doctrine is distinctly 
stated as belonging to Anaximander by Hippolytus (Ref. 
Hcer., I. 6), and by Plutarch in various places, in words as 
we shall now translate them. 

" Anaximander says that the^rs^ animals were gene- 
rated in the liquid element, and were enclosed in certain 
thin prickly rinds or skins ; that as they grew they be- 
came more and more consolidated, till at length the shell 
bursting, they came out into a different form of life" 
(Plac, Phil v. 19). 

" Anaximander says that man originally was born 
(developed) out of different animals ; for that, while other 
animals, the moment they are born, know how to help 
themselves and procure food, man alone requires a long 
nursing ; and being such as he now is, could not possibly 
have had his life preserved in the earliest stages " (Apud 
Euseb., Prcepar. Evang., i. 8). 

" Anaximander declares that man originally had his 
existence as a sort of fish among fishes, and that being 
nursed in a soft element, like creatures that live in the 
mud, he by degrees became strong enough to help him- 
self, and being cast out from his original slimy home, took 
to the dry land, and became a terrestrial animal " (Qucest. 
Sympos., viii. 8). 

This theory, indeed, which has so strangely startled 



ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 263 

modern ears, was quite familiar to the Greeks, and appears 
in the well-known account of the Egyptian frogs crawling, 
half-released, from the slime of the Nile ( JElian, V. H. I. 3), 
and in not a few other quarters. In modern times, also, 
Lord Monboddo was not singular in directing attention to 
the probable indications of an original caudal appendage 
in man ; a French writer before him had expatiated 
largely on the evidence for this fact, and for that other 
yet more remarkable one, that the sea had at one time 
possessed the whole dry land — at which period man, 
according to Anaximander s idea, was certainly a fish, and 
could, indeed, have existed in no other form. 1 

Anaximenes, the next link in this Milesian chain, 
need not detain us. By laying down the proposition that 
air, not water, was the dpxn> this thinker made a manifest 
step in advance ; for air is certainly fluidity in its most 
perfect form : a form also of more subtle penetrative 
power than water — of more universal diffusiveness, and 
more essentially connected with all forms of vitality. But 
beyond this we find nothing in his doctrine of any peculiar 
significance. Far otherwise is the case with the next 
representative of this school, Heraclitus. He was a native 
of Ephesus, and from the manner in which he is con- 
stantly spoken of by the greatest of the ancients, it is easy 
to gather that as a thinker he peers high above his Ionic 
brethren, and disputes with Pythagoras and Parmenides 
the claim to being the most important name in the deve- 
lopment of Greek speculation previous to Plato. The 
surname of a/coTeivos, or "the obscure," which he received 
from the Greeks, may have arisen partly from an original 
moodiness of disposition, partly from a fondness for the 

1 Telliamed ; or, Discourses between Missionary. From the French of De 
an Indian Philosopher and a French Maillet. London, 1750. 



264 ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 

old poetic and figurative style in philosophizing, but 
partly, no doubt, also from the real profundity of his cogi- 
tations. He evidently went with a decided preference 
into regions where darkness more or less visible must 
always be the best light which finite minds are capable of 
receiving. The most distinctive and suggestive of his 
dogmas are the following : — 

(1.) His doctrine that irvp, or fire, is the dpxn> is a 
very decided step in advance both of Thales and Anaxi- 
menes ; for chemistry has now taught us by many curious 
processes, what appears no doubt broadly on the general 
face of Nature, that heat is the power to the action of 
which both water and air owe their existence. Take 
away heat from water and it becomes ice ; take away heat, 
and the expansiveness caused by heat, from a gas, and 
under the influence of strong pressure it becomes liquid. 
Heraclitus therefore proceeded by a true process of induc- 
tion when he put his finger on heat as that common prin- 
ciple which, by producing fluidity, makes life possible. 

(2.) But this fire or heat is nothing of a merely mate- 
rial kind, like the caloric, or matter of heat, of which our 
captains of physical science were once fond of talking. 
The fire of Heraclitus is a reasonable or rational heat ; it 
is inspired by a \dyo$ ; it is ^povip.ov and fypevrjpes (Hippol., 
IX. 10. Sext. Empir. adv. Math., vn. 127) ; it works by 
a divine necessity, which is the cause of order and law in 
the universe, and on which the validity and stability of 
all human laws ultimately depend. Mind and Reason, 
indeed, are diffused everywhere in the universe, and are 
the common elements in virtue of which a harmonious 
and coherent whole is rendered possible. Uvvov iarc iraai 
to cfrpoveiv Tpecjyovrcu yap iravres 01 avQpwiuvoi vofiou vito eVo? tov 
6eiov Kpareet yap togovtov 6/coaov eOeXei, Kat, e^apKeec iraat /cal 



ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 265 

Trepiylyverac (Stob., Florileg. in. 84). To a modern ear this 
doctrine may probably sound very like Pantheism ; and 
no doubt it is Pantheism, but a sort of Pantheism by no 
means like some of our modern Pantheisms, full cousin 
to Atheism. It is more like the Pantheism of Spinoza, 
which, if it is to receive a peculiar name, ought, according 
to Hegel, rather to be called Acosmism than Atheism. It 
annihilates the world by concentrating all the significance 
of the term existence in the idea of God. 

(3.) The divine rational energy, called irvp, is essentially 
self-motive, and never at rest. Tldvra pel — all things are 
in a perpetual flux, so that a flowing river is the most 
proper type of universal existence. (Plato, Crat. 402 a). 

" Nothing to hold itself is strong, 
But all things, like a river, 
Whirl along and swirl along, 
And bubble along for ever." 

(4.) But, though the motion of existence in the cosmos 
is shapeless and ceaseless, it is in one important respect 
not like the course of a river ; it is not a motion directly 
forward and onward ; but it is a motion forward and back- 
ward, with recurrent strokes like the vibrations of the string 
of a lyre or a bow. 1 This implies a sort of self-contra- 
diction inherent in the very nature of things. Life is 
manifested by the assertion of contraries : health, beauty, 
truth, and rightness of all kinds consist in a balance of 
opposites. This doctrine Heraclitus felt so strongly, that 
he did not hesitate to say that TroKefiov elvai irarepa kcll 
fiaaikea /ecu /evpiov irdvTwv (Plut., Is. Osir. 48), " War is the 
father, and king, and lord of all things;" and in putting 
forth this, to us strange sentiment, he no doubt in some- 

1 UakivTovos ap[j,ovir} Koafxov OKcoanep \vprjs Ka\ to£ov. Plut. Is. Osir. 45. 



266 ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 

wise anticipated the famous maxim of Spinoza, adopted 
by Hegel — Omms affirmatio est negatio. 

(5.) Heraclitus further taught that at the bottom of 
this constant vicissitude, which we call life and the world, 
there is a something which never changes, an absolute 
sameness in the midst of relative otherness ; so that what 
we call death is really only another form of life ; and the 
life of any one thing always grows out of the death of 
some other thing. 1 This side of his speculations, if 
carried out, might have formed the basis for a doctrine of 
permanency, which would have been the natural and pro- 
per counterpoise to the sensuous scepticism that was only 
too easily deduced from his favourite doctrine of flux ; 
but it was reserved for the philosophers of the abstract 
and strictly metaphysical school to give due emphasis to 
this essential element of the Cosmos. 

The fifth and last doctor of this class was Empedocles 
of Agrigentum, a man of noble family, lofty character, 
great talent, and various accomplishment, of whose poems, 
7repl Quo-em and /caQap/jLol, considerable fragments are pre- 
served, commented on in Karsten's collection and Preller's 
history of Grasco -Roman philosophy. Important as was 
the figure which he played in his native country, in the 
curiously compound character of a physician, a priest, 
and a politician, he does not seem to have said much on 
philosophy that had not been already said by his pre- 
decessors. Like Plato, naturally a poet, and a man of a 
constructive imagination, he seems to have wished to 
combine into one rich whole the speculations of his pre- 
decessors, partly disguised under different names. The 
Water, Air, and Fire of three of his predecessors he 
adopted, and with the very obvious addition of Earth, 

1 '0d6s apco Kcii k.6.t<o filr) Kal oovtyj. Hippol. IX. 10. 



ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 267 

tie constructed the universe out of our familiar four 
elements, which he called pi^wfiara, roots, constantly sub- 
mitted to the influence of the two adverse principles, 
$i\ia and Nee/cos — Love and Strife. This was evidently 
nothing but an old mythological expression for the doc- 
trine of balanced contraries laid down by Heraclitus ; and 
the only thing worth saying about it is that it suggests 
to modern associations more directly the attractions and 
repulsions of physical science made so familiar to us by 
the establishment of chemistry as one of the most fertile 
fields of discovery. The alternation of life and death, of 
construction and destruction, of organization and dissolu- 
tion, caused by the eternal action of Neifcos and QCkla, 
comes strongly out in some lines preserved by Simplicius 
{Phys.y 34 a), which I translate as follows : — 

" First from the Many grew the one ; and then 
The One, resolved into its parts, again 
Became the Many ; thus the changes run 
Of all that lives and dies beneath the sun ; 
Now Love unites their elements ; and they 
Chained into one a balanced whole display, 
Now by strong Hate and Strife their parts resile, 
And into ruin drops the stately pile." 

His fragments are remarkable for a very strongly pro- 
nounced materialism, as we would call it, not, however, 
without a distinct recognition of the Pythagorean X0709, 
which happily withdraws him from the companionship of 
that gross school of thinkers who, as Plato says in the 
Thesetetus, believe only in their fingers ; at the same 
time he asserts in language which, if used by a modern 
writer, would cause him to be set down as full brother to 
Helvetius, that all ala0r}<ri<s is c^povrjcr^, and especially that 
the seat of (jypovrjais is in the blood. He also shows a 



268 ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 

decided tendency to break down the wall of partition 
between man and the lower animals ; nay, he asserts that 
intelligence belongs to plants as well as to animals ; and 
that man in his present state is in the fourth degree of 
gradual ascent from a less complete and more dependent 
to a more complete and less dependent state of existence 
(Plut., Viae. Phil. v. 19). He thus shares with Anaxi- 
mander the fame or the folly, as it may turn out, of the 
development theory of animal life, so attractively put 
forward by Darwin. 

II. Of the second great class of the pre-Socratic 
philosophers the distinguished head was Democritus of 
Abdera. He was the greatest naturalist and traveller, 
and the most encyclopaedic man of his day — a sort of 
Humboldt of the fifth century B.C., and a precursor of 
Aristotle ; and it is as a man of science and universal 
knowledge rather than as a philosopher that he must 
take rank in the history of intellect. The doctrine of 
atoms which he originated has no doubt a certain philo- 
sophical value, though assuredly not a very profound one ; 
for it is easy to see that all composite masses can be 
broken down, dissipated, and resolved into certain in- 
finitesimally small atoms or molecules, which must be 
regarded as their ultimate elements. But when the sage 
of Abdera, by adding to this primitive material fact the 
idea of mere force, conceived himself to have given an 
explanation of the curious structure of the reasoned 
system of things which we call the cosmos, he manifestly 
did not advance, but rather made a great step backward 
in the physico-metaphysical speculation of his predecessors. 
They had always explicitly or implicitly asserted the 
presence of an indwelling A070?, or reason, as the soul of 



ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY, 269 

the world : this was a living and a dynamical conception, 
which contained, without attempting to explain, the great 
mystery of a miraculous divine centre of existence ; but 
they never attempted mechanically to construct the 
universe out of mere variously-formed atoms, brought 
together by blind forces and fortuitous collisions. The 
philosophy of Democritus is in fact pure Atheism — that 
is, pure nothingness and nonsense ; for a reasonable world 
can never be conceived as the possible result of an un- 
reasonable cause. If the maundering of a madhouse were 
to go on to all eternity, it could never produce sanity ; 
if the babblement of a host of children were to go to in- 
finity, it could never stumble into the demonstration of a 
single proposition in Euclid ; and so evident is this that 
one cannot but feel seriously inclined to doubt whether, 
after all, Democritus, had we been able to submit him to 
a cross-examination, would have pleaded guilty to the 
inanity of the Epicurean Atheism of which he stands 
historically as the father. Certainly with regard to 
Protagoras, Diagoras, and a few other Greeks of this 
period, who are said to have professed open Atheism, it 
never can be proved that in their negation of all theology 
they meant to do more than protest against the existence 
of such superhuman beings as the anthropomorphic gods, 
which they found as objects of popular worship in their own 
country ; and the writings of some modern speculators, 
such as David Hume, teach us to believe that a subtle 
thinker may puzzle himself in theory with arguments tend- 
ing to sap the belief in a reasonable Cause, and yet refuse 
to acknowledge the consequences of his argument when it 
lands him in the positive profession of blank Atheism. 
But however this be, the thinker who constructs a theory 
of Nature without God can have no pretensions to the 



270 ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 

name of philosopher ; the very fact of his ignoring the 
only possible explanation of the existence of a reasonable 
system of things is a proof that he has given up philo- 
sophy in despair. He may be a man of subtle thought, 
of curious science, of universal knowledge ; but a philo- 
sopher, or an expounder of ultimate truth, he cannot 
possibly be ; for the world which it was his business to 
explain he not only leaves a riddle and a mystery as he 
found it, but makes it absolute nonsense. We need not 
be surprised, therefore, that as a philosopher Democritus 
exercised no influence on the two great schools of Greek 
thought which the next century saw founded in Athens : 
the keen, sharp, analytic intellect of Aristotle, and the 
lofty, constructive genius of Plato stood equally apart 
from a pseudo-philosophy which was content to float 
about blindly in a blind vacuity, and to reason upon pos- 
tulates which implied the absolute negation of all reason. 
No philosophy could prosper in reasoning Greece of which 
X070? in some shape or other was not the centre. 

III. We now come to the third and last and most 
distinguished class of early Greek thinkers, viz., those who 
taught that the dpxn w &s not a thing objective, visible, or 
tangible, or appreciable by the senses in any way, but an 
inner, invisible, moulding, and formative principle, which 
we call mind, or at least some function of mind, and 
which cannot be conceived as objective or material. This 
philosophy of course gave the direct contradiction to all 
atheism, and therefore it may be properly called theo- 
logical; it is also rightly termed metaphysical, because it 
finds the dpxn or fundamental cause of all things in some- 
thing behind and beyond that beautiful and various out- 
side which we call the world. Now, no doubt, Thales, 



ON THE PRE-SOCEATIC PHILOSOPHY. 271 

Heraclitus, and Empedocles, as we have indicated, all 
believed in this metaphysical cause of everything physical 
as much as Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Anaxagoras ; but 
they presented this metaphysical cause always under the" 
mask of some physical element ; and the key-note of their 
thinking directed attention in a marked way to something 
external. But when Pythagoras, the great founder of 
the theological philosophy, declared the first principle of 
all things to be Number, he brought the philosophical 
mind into an entirely new position, turned as it were the 
obverse side of the coin, and showed an image and super- 
scription there altogether different from that which had 
been previously exhibited. By apiO^ of course was 
meant, not a mere multitude or succession of units, but 
calculated number, relation, proportion, and all that 
curious construction of nicely-measured spaces on which 
symmetry in architecture, harmony in music, and the 
whole practice of the fine arts depend. In announcing 
this principle Pythagoras saw deeper into ijie nature of the 
cosmos than any of the pre-Socratic philosophers ; he saw 
that the world is a world simply because it is a atoV^o?, or 
an order; and order always depends on calculation, on 
the arrangement of units according to certain relations of 
number. But the relations of number are a thing purely 
abstract and intellectual ; they are the product of think- 
ing ; they are not derived from the senses ; animals see 
an infinity of things, and see them often with a more 
keen and sharp observation than men ; but animals have 
no calculation; the cleverest monkey is much further 
removed from the comprehension of the simplest arith- 
metical proposition than the stupidest man, for the one is 
separated by a gap, the other removed only by a step or 
steps from all abstract notions. It is plain therefore that 



272 ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 

by asserting number as the ap%v> Pythagoras was only 
defining the method of operation of Mind, or X070? ; and 
what he called Number was only another name for what 
our modern men of physical science call Law. For that 
law is altogether a matter of calculation any one may see 
in the constant practice of mechanical philosophers, 
astronomers, and chemists ; the laws of nature are only 
the regularly acting forces of nature ; and all regularly 
acting forces are necessarily either directly or indirectly 
the product of mind ; as a steam-engine, for instance, 
however often multiplied, is always and everywhere the 
product of the calculating intellect of James Watt, pro- 
pagated and perpetuated through countless imitators. In 
assigning this high position to the mathematical element 
in the constitution of the universe, Pythagoras certainly 
deserves to be reverenced as the great prophet and anti- 
cipator of our modern scientific processes; what he de- 
monstrated with a fine preference in the case of the 
musical scale, is now demonstrated in everything; not 
only the motions of the stars and the arrangement of 
leaves in plants, but the very winds and storms are made 
the subjects of calculation. Unless indeed it be in the 
flow of emotion, the flash of wit, the play of fancy, and 
the fervour of passion, it is difficult now-a-days to find a 
domain that can boast its freedom from the wide control 
of calculated Number. 

As in reference to the mundane system, the Pytha- 
gorean assertion of dpidfio? necessarily implied the unity of 
the plan of the world, and its existence as the product of 
a calculating architect, so in reference to the social system 
the same idea brought into prominence the principle of 
order, and authority, and subordination, that at the 
present day gives its leading features to what are called 



ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 273 

Conservative politics, as opposed to the politics of a free 
and equal individualism. Pythagoras accordingly pre- 
ceded Plato in the constitution of a republic mainly on 
the principle of order ; and in one respect certainly far 
excelled his brilliant successor ; for the constitution which 
the Athenian projected remained a dream upon paper, 
while the community established by the Samian was a 
realized fact of considerable social importance for a season. 
In the establishment of this community indeed he comes 
nearer to the founders of the great moral society of the 
Christian Church than any ancient philosopher ; it 
appeared, however, that in this he occupied ground which 
philosophy was not competent to maintain ; for the Pytha- 
gorean societies in South-Eastern Italy, being oligarchic 
in their character and operation, came into collision with 
that democratic element which was always so potent in 
the Greek colonies, and being cast out lost their organic 
consistency. This great failure no doubt gave the hint 
to Plato to content himself with founding a school at 
Athens, not a community ; for it is only upon very rare 
occasions that political parties have ventured to interfere 
with the ventilation of unapplied speculations in the 
schools. 

Less popularly known than Pythagoras, but scarcely 
of less significance in the history of thought, is Xenophanes 
of Colophon, who stands chronologically between the 
Samian and Heraclitus. As the founder of the Eleatic 
School, he, with Parmenides, stands forward as the cham- 
pion of the principle of unity in the universe, adding the 
necessary counterpoise to the doctrine of flux and muta- 
bility, on which, as we have seen, Heraclitus so moodily 
rung the changes. How to bridge over the gap between 
the one and the many— to apprehend how the ev became 



274 ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 






iroXkd if we start from the one, and how the iroWa wai 
worked into the unity of a consistent whole, if we are to 
start from the many — that of course was, and is, the great 
problem of all metaphysical and theological thought. To 
solve this problem, the Eleatics took the method of 
Spinoza ; they asserted the one as the only really existent, 
and allowed the many to shift for themselves as they best 
might under the name of appearances, modifications, illu- 
sions (the Hindu Maya), and whatsoever you please, of 
the nature of fleeting, ephemeral, and without indepen- 
dent root and enduring reality. God only exists ; all 
created things are mere passing phantoms and pheno- 
menal illusions. As assertors of the self-existent ev, the 
Eleatics were naturally opposed to that breaking down of 
the divine nature into a multitude of discordant per- 
sonalities which they beheld in the popular polytheism of 
their country ; and it is one of the great merits of Xeno- 
phanes that he anticipated Plato by a century and a half 
in publishing a vigorous protest against the contradictions, 
puerilities, and immoralities of the Homeric theology. 
Whether the boldness of his utterances in respect to the 
popular theology may not have been the cause of his 
leaving his Asiatic home, and settling, like Pythagoras, in 
Southern Italy, we have no means of knowing ; the fol- 
lowing declarations, however, which I translate from his 
fragments in Karsten s collection, if they had got beyond 
the authors private circle, are certainly strongly enough 
worded to have made the writer's position sufficiently 
uncomfortable in that part of the world where the pre- 
sence of St. Paul, five centuries afterwards, raised such a 
storm of blatant spite and fury among the worshippers of 
the Ephesian Artemis. 



ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 275 

i. 

" There is one God, supreme above all gods and men that be ; 
Not like a mortal thing in shape, nor like in thought is He. 

II. 

" vain conceit, to ween that gods like men are born, and show 
Our human face, and use our speech, and in our garments go ! 

III. 

" If sheep and swine, and lions strong, and all the bovine crew, 
Could paint with cunning hands, and do what clever mortals do, 
Depend upon it every pig with snout so broad and blunt, 
Would make a Jove that like himself would thunder with a grunt ; 
And every lion's god would roar, and every bull's would bellow, 
And every sheep's would baa, and every beast his worshipp'd fellow 
Would find in some immortal form, and nought exist divine 
But had the gait of lion, sheep, or ox, or grunting swine. 

IV. 

" Homer and Hesiod, whom we own great doctors of theology, 
Said many things of blissful gods that cry for large apology, 
That they may cheat, and rail, and lie, and give the rein to passion, 
Which were a crime in men who tread the dust in mortal fashion. 

v. 

" All eyes, all ears, all thought is God, the omnipresent soul, 
And free from toil, by force of mind He moves the mighty whole." 

The only other point worthy of remark with regard to 
Xenophanes is that he seems to have been the first Greek 
speculator — certainly the first of whom any record is left 
— who distinctly noted those curious phenomena in the 
crust of the earth's surface indicative of an early disturbed 
state of the globe, which, when collected and systematized, 
have grown up into the interesting modern science of 
Geology. The passage in which this remarkable notice 
occurs is in that part of the work of Hippolytus (Refut. 
Hcer., i. 14) which gives a review of the opinions of the 
Greek philosophers ; and here he distinctly says that 
" shells, and the prints of fishes, and marine animals were 
found in the rocks at Syracuse, Malta, and Paros ; and 



276 ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 

that this was evidently the result of a watery condition of 
the Earth's surface, when everything was swathed in mud, 
and the living creatures of the sea left the impressions of 
their bodies in the soft beds, which afterwards became 
dry." 

The last philosopher whom our present scheme requires 
us to mention is Anaxagoras, the friend of Pericles, and 
the precursor of Plato in the complete emancipation of 
metaphysical speculation from physical symbols. No 
doubt Socrates in a well-known passage accuses this philo- 
sopher of not having consistently applied the intellectual 
principle ol the world which he laid down (Plat. Phced. 
98 B.) ; but in declaring that the only adequate explana- 
tion of the cosmos was to be found in self-existent, self- 
energizing vovs or Mind, the Clazomenian certainly made 
a stride in advance, marking him out as well worthy of 
the commendation bestowed by Aristotle, that in this 
matter he spoke like a full-grown man as contrasted with 
the lisping and babblement of children. There is in 
fact only a very superficial difference of expression between 
the vov? of Anaxagoras and the Elohim of Moses. " In 
the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth." 
About the exact meaning of the word "create" (**??), 
of course our finite intellects always must dispute : if we 
could understand that word fully, we should be not men, 
but God : apart from this, however, the fiao-iXiKo? vov$ of 
Anaxagoras and Plato, which is the keystone of Christian 
faith as well as of the highest modern thinking, is simply 
another name for @eo? — God. We find, therefore, in the 
apxn of Anaxagoras a natural and beautiful culmination 
which harmonizes in one significant watchword the philo- 
sophy ofGreece, the faith of Christendom, and the instincts 
of a healthy humanity. 



ON THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 277 

Of the Sophists as predecessors or contemporaries of 
Socrates it is not necessary to say anything in this paper. 
They were not so much founders of systems of philosophy 
as disputers about philosophy — corresponding to a certain 
class of our literary men, who talk and write on all subjects 
without having any strong convictions on any subject ; 
some of them, indeed, as Gorgias, professing only to be 
teachers of rhetoric, and others adding to that some super- 
ficial instruction in the principles of a worldly morality 
and a time-serving statesmanship. The philosophy that 
they taught was generally of a negative and destructive 
character ; and the part which it played in the history of 
thought was mainly to bring out in full armed strength 
the rational ethics of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Of 
course I am fully aware of the attempt recently made by 
Mr. Grote to plant these gentlemen on a higher and more 
dignified platform ; but, great as are the merits of this 
distinguished writer in reference to the political history 
of Greece, I cannot but regard his chapter on the Sophists 
as the product of a reactionary feeling, doomed to pass 
away with the generation which gave it birth. 



REMAKES ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 

When Mr. Southey, some fifty years ago, in his 
famous poem, The Vision of Judgment, resuscitated the 
long-laid " ghost of English hexameters/' he did not do 
so under such favourable circumstances (so far as himself 
was concerned), nor with such accompaniments of public 
approbation, as could invite any future candidate for 
rhythmical distinction to imitate his bold example. Nay, 
the old English mastiff sent forth one of its rough con- 
servative growls in the shape of a separate book of no less 
than eighty-four pages (price four shillings !) of " his- 
torical and critical remarks " on the subject, by a Reverend 
Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. 1 Most people imagined 
that the effect of this combined indifference and opposition 
had been, to lay the unquiet spirit of metrical innovation 
for ever; 2 but in these last times, amid the prevalence of 
many other strange fermentations, it is nothing surprising 
that the ghost should have again appeared. Not to men- 
tion Longfellow's Evangeline, — a poem which has boasted 
as wide a popularity as any rhythmical production of the 
present century, — we have had 'within the last twenty 

1 Historical and Critical Remarks singular fates of hexameter verse in our 

upon the modem Hexametrists : by the early English literature. 
Reverend S. Tillbrook, B. D., Fellow 

of Peterhouse, Cambridge. 1822. — A 2 " I am well aware that the public 

work valuable more for its facts than are peculiarly intolerant of such inno- 

for its philosophy, and containing some vations." — Southey, Preface to Vision 

curious points of information on the of Judgment. 






REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 279 

years no less than three translations of the Iliad in hexa- 
meter verse -} besides a hexametrical version of the books 
of the Iliad in a quarter so conservative of old English 
ideas as Blackwood's Magazine. 2, The phenomenon is a 
most remarkable one, and forces itself with a strong 
sesthetical interest, both on the student of English litera- 
ture and on the classical scholar. To the one it is interest- 
ing to inquire how far our admirable language, even at 
the present late period, may admit of a new rhythmical 
development ; while the other is even more concerned to 
inquire whether, after the precedents which Pope and 
Dry den and Sotheby have already established, it be yet 
possible to make acceptable to the English ear a style of 
translation which shall not merely transpose the soul and 
the body of Greek antiquity into our Saxon speech, but 
exhibit even the very attitude and posture, the vesture 
and drapery of the Hellenic Muse. On this subject we 
hope the few following remarks will not prove un- 
acceptable. 

The beau ideal of a translation as a work of art unques- 
tionably is, that it shall be as much as possible a likeness 
of its original ; the same in. substance and in character, in 
significance and expression, in spirit and detail, in a word 
a Facsimile, as far as may be. There are pictures, copies 
from the great masters, done by their disciples, with such 
perfect cunning of the pencil, that even an experienced 
eye cannot distinguish them from the originals. To achieve 
that with words which has been achieved by lines and 



1 By Dart, 1865; Herscliel, 1866; of English hexameters by a writer in 
and Cochran, 1867, privately printed. the Westminster Review, March 1845, in 

2 See Blackwood for the months of a notice of Sotheby's Homer, and "the 
March and May 1847 ^though in fair- Iliad faithfully rendered into Homeric 
ness we must mention that Christopher verse :" by Lancelot Shadwell, Esquire. 
North was anticipated in his patronage Nos. 1 and 3. London. Pickering. 



280 REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 

colours, were the perfection of the translator's art ; but 
unhappily the thing is in the general case impossible. For 
the translator does not work with the same materials as 
his original : a good black or blue in the hands of Giulio 
Romano may produce the same effect as in the hands of 
Raphael ; but no Coleridge or Shelley can in every case 
make the English language do that which Homer or 
iEschylus may have done with the Greek. A translator is 
often called on to make a facsimile of a golden image with 
brass, sometimes with hard granite or gnarled gneiss ; 
sometimes to reproduce upon coarse drugget and " hodden 
grey" that fine figured broidery which was worked by 
delicate hands on the velvet mantle of a king. It is in 
vain, therefore, to expect a perfect facsimile from a 
translator ; we can only demand a reproduction of the 
original, in so far as the material employed will allow ; 
and this necessary condition of the undertaking in the 
hands of a man of taste and judgment will often lead to 
very considerable encroachments on the original idea of 
an exact copy. It is impossible, for instance, even in the 
plainest prose, to give an Englishman ignorant of German 
any idea, through translation, of the style in which many 
German writers express themselves. A German sentence, 
partly by the habit of the language, partly by the vice of 
the writer, is often a thing so vast, complex, and involved, 
that it must be cut up into half a dozen separate sentences 
before it can assume the shape of readable and intelli- 
gible English. In like manner with the English language, 
it is impracticable to give an exact facsimile of some of 
the Greek metres, because the rhythmical constitution 
and habit of our tongue imperatively repels the attempt. 
Take, for instance, the splendid chorus in the opening of 
The Persians, written in what metricians call the Ionic a 



REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 281 

minori measure, and attempt a metrical transference of 
that into English : — 

7T€7repa/<€i' [xkv 6 TrcpckirToXis ^'817 

j3a(Tl\eiO<S CTTpOLTOS, K.T.A. 

\J ^ _ _ W N^ — — j 

To the Greek coast, with a vast host, 

"Went the great king o'er the broad stream, 

To which fair Helle her name gave, 

When she fell down from the ram's back to the deep sea ! 



This, be it observed, is as near a facsimile as can be 
made to the Greek measure in our language, an accented 
syllable with us systematically performing the rhythmical 
function, which in Greek could only be performed by a 
long one ; and the effect, as the English ear at once feels, 
is perfectly ludicrous and absurd. Further, if the metri- 
cal translator were, on the principle of exact facsimile, 
to go a step beyond this, and compose English verses 
according to the ancient law, with a strict regard to the 
musical quantity alone, irrespective of the spoken accent, 
he would produce not merely an absurd and ludicrous 
rhythm, but a jargon out of which no English ear could 
extract anything the least approaching to harmony. 
The general principle, then, on which a metrical trans- 
lation must proceed is plain enough. The reader of a 
translated work is entitled to demand a facsimile of the 
original ; but this only in so far as is consistent with the 
grammatical and rhythmical genius of the language in 
ivhich the translation is made. Now what is included in 
that wide word the Genius of a language ? It includes 
two things essentially different ; but which in the criti- 
cisms that have been made on English hexameters have 
too often been confounded ; it includes, in the first place, 
and principally, whatever belongs organically to the gram- 



282 REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 

matical and metrical structure of the language ; and in 
the second place, whatever belongs by use and habit and 
association to the characteristic style and peculiar living 
expression of the language. Of metrical movements 
affected by essential structure, a language is either natur- 
ally capable, or capable only with considerable exertion, 
or absolutely incapable. Thus, the English language, by 
its structure, most naturally falls into the iambic move- 
ment, in which measure accordingly almost all our great 
poems of any length, as also our most popular songs and 
ballads, are written ; but it is also capable, without any 
painful effort, of the trochaic movement ; and when 
stirred with high lyric emotion, it does not refuse the 
tribrachic measure, which, however, according to its 
essentially accentual and not quantitative character, it 
mingles at random with dactyles, an apes ts, and every 
variety of the trisyllabic foot. The Italian language, on 
the other hand, is, by its structure, utterly foreclosed from 
the free use of the iambic close, so natural to us. An 
Italian, therefore, cannot make an exact facsimile of an 
English poem of which the closes of the verse are not all 
trochaics. But though we can write in trochaic rhythm, 
our language does not with the same facility — especially 
when rhyme is necessary — admit the trochaic close, or 
" double ending" as it is sometimes called. The conse- 
quence of which essential difference of structure is, that 
an exact rhythmical transference from Italian into Eng- 
lish, or from English into Italian, is, in the general case, 
either impossible or extremely inconvenient. In this 
particular the Germans are infinitely more happy ; for in 
their rich and various language, the single and double 
endings exist in a fair and even proportion, and suggest 
themselves accordingly to the poetic ear with equal 



REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 283 

facility. Let us now apply these remarks specially to 
the English Hexameter. 

The question, whether there is anything in the organic 
structure of the English language adverse to the use of 
the hexameter verse, as Tillbrook and the anti-Hexa- 
metrists generally maintain, must be answered in the 
negative or the affirmative, according to the kind of hexa- 
meter verse meant ; the ancient hexameter verse, which 
is essentially quantitative in its structure, or the modern 
hexameter verse so successfully cultivated by the Ger- 
mans, which is as essentially accentual. Of the genuine 
ancient, or pure dactylic hexameter verse, the English 
language is altogether incapable; not only because no 
language whose poetry is founded on elocutional prin- 
ciples can, without the most gross solecism, exactly imi- 
tate the rhythm of a language whose poetry is founded 
on the rules and practice of music, but because there are 
not a sufficient number of pure dactyles and pure spondees 
in the English language, to make the imitation possible 
for any length of time, in a style consistent with the com- 
fort of the artist, and the demands of his art. A fashion 
indeed has prevailed in the common grammars, of mar- 
shalling forth certain measures familiar to our lyric poetry, 
under the name of dactylic and anapaestic ; but it requires 
only a simple appeal to the ear to perceive that this 
phraseology is most inadequate, and like many other 
terms of art, borrowed from the ancient Prosodians, when 
applied to our modern tongues, has had no effect but to 
beget and to perpetuate confusion. The fact of the matter 
is, that our English dactylic and anapaestic verses, though 
they admit of any number of true dactyles and anapaests, 
are, as was hinted above, rather tribrachic than dactylic in 
their character ; the tribrach occurring often er in them than 



284: REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 

the dactyle, and its equivalent the trochee, much more 
frequently than the spondee. We have indeed in Eng- 
lish a woeful lack of genuine spondees ; that is to say, 
spondees that are both full as to quantity and of har- 
monious flow. For spondees by position, as they are 
sometimes called, are in fact trochees, and must be alto- 
gether discarded from the account ; for position, which 
allowed the ancients to lengthen a syllable otherwise 
short, is so far from having that effect in English and 
German, that the common rule for both languages is, that 
a vowel before two or more consonants is short. Accord- 
ing to this quantitative law, while Wohl-laut is a pure 
spondee in German, Weltmeer is an iambic (though with 
the accent on the first syllable, like Xoycov in Greek), Ab'~ 
hang is a pyrrhis (though a trochee by abuse of language 
accentually), and Rauchf ang is a trochee both quantitative 
and accentual. In the English language, female, outgo, 
outpour, foresee, live-long, bleach-green, ivide- spread, are 
genuine spondees as to quantity ; but the number of such 
words in our language is few, and those that we have are 
in reality compound words only half-joined into one, and 
not half so harmonious as a spondee included in a single 
word ; for in these compound words each element retains, 
in a manner, its separate existence, and comes upon the 
ear almost with a double accent, which is not pleasant. 1 
For spondees, therefore, we are driven to depend in a 
great measure upon the juxta-collocation of two long 
monosyllables, as in that of South ey, — 

1 This is the reason why such words Magazine (May 1846) offends in this 
are peculiarly offensive in the close of view. " This he ascended and slept ; 



a verse, where we expect the metrical and beside him was Hera, the 

undulation to fall smoothly, and not to throned." The " procumbit humi bos," 

jerk off abruptly. The last line of the of Virgil, is harsh (but purposely) on 

first book of the Iliad in Blackwood's the same principle. 



HE MARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 285 

" In full-orbed glory yonder moon divine, 
- - i 

Eolls through the dark blue depths." 

But even this does not occur readily enough in a long 
composition, to enable the English translator to communi- 
cate to the English ear any impression of the stable mass 
of ponderous harmony which marches majestically to its 
goal, in the spondaic lines of Homer and Virgil. The fact 
of the matter is, the genius of the English language is 
essentially anti-spondaic ; and in no respect are the hexa- 
meters of Mr. Southey and the Homeric translator in 
Blackwood, more inferior to their original than even here. 
The writer in Blctckivood, indeed, strikes us as superabund- 
ant in tribrachs and dactyles of admirable smoothness for 
the most part, but not sufficiently tempered and varied 
by spondees ; but this is the natural vice of the English 
hexameter ; for even in Mr. Southey 's masterly rhythm, 
when the majestic undulation (for we cannot call it march) 
of the long-continued dactyle or tribrach is suspended, we 
feel that the trochee and pyrrhic, even when aided by 
a dexterous use of comma and pause, have scarcely weight 
enough to fill up the space which the subtraction of so 
many syllables takes from the rhythm. 

" Earth was hushed and still : all motion and sound was suspended, 
Neither man was heard, bird, beast, nor humming of insect." 

So much for the spondee. As for the dactyles, it will be 
manifest to every one who will appeal to his ear, that 
though our hexameter verse is by no means deficient in 
them, yet that tribrachs are decidedly preponderant ; and 
these, along with the frequent trochees and pyrrhics, in- 
stead of real spondees, are apt to give a light and tripping 
air to the modern verse, the very opposite of that stability 
and steadiness which Dionysius of Halicarnassus so extols 



286 REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 

in the ancient rhythm. The fact is, that while the ancient 
hexameter was, strictly speaking, march-time, our hexa- 
meter s musical correlative is rather jig-time, or waltz- 
time ; and it requires great care in the writer, and even 
more in the reciter, to give to this measure, in its modern 
shape, that weight and majesty of movement which un- 
questionably belonged 1 to its ancient prototype. But 
to proceed. Leaving the quantitative and musical ele- 
ment altogether out of view, the main question recurs, 
whether there is anything in the mere structure of the 
English language adverse to a rhythm formed in imitation 
of the ancient hexameter, adopting the accentual, and 
rejecting the quantitative law ; and to this question we 
think we may answer confidently — despite of what Till- 
brook and others have urged — that there is not. This 
matter indeed has been already proved by the fact ; for 
though the majority of English readers may not have re- 
conciled — perhaps never endeavoured to reconcile — their 
ears to the new movement introduced to them in the 
Vision of Judgment, it is most certain that the rhythm of 
that poem flows most easily, smoothly, and naturally, and 
that — whatever its effect may be on English feelings and 
associations — it offers no violence to the natural structure 
and movement of the English language. It is hard indeed 
to see how six dactylic or tribrachic feet in succession 
should present anything contrary to the rhythmical move- 
ment of the English language, when the same measure in 
dimeter, trimeter, and tetrameter extent is of the most 
frequent occurrence in our lyric poetry, and when we 
consider, as all our orthoepists inform us, that the ante- 



l, we say strictly, not be- tation to pretend that Mr. Southey's 

longs ; for, with our present barbarous hexameters do not sound as well — ay 

habits of Latin reading in schools often and a great deal better, to a well-trained 

innocent of all elocution, it is mere affec- ear, than Virgil's. 



REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 287 

penultimate, tribrachic or dactylic, accent is the favourite 
accent of the English tongue. How naturally our lan- 
guage slides into the hexameter is indeed manifest, not 
only from the fact that this measure sometimes presents 
itself without being sought for, as in that well-known 
instance quoted by Southey, 

" Why do the | heathen | rage, and the | people i- 1 magine a | vain thing," 

but from many single experiments that can be made on 
our own lyric poetry, tending to show how slight the 
change is that is necessary to transmute some of our dac- 
tylic metres into hexameters. Thus the following three 

dimeters, — 

" Not in the desert, 
Son of Hodeirah, 
Art thou abandoned," 

if written in one line, are in fact a hexameter ; but the 
law of Caesura requires a slight change, thus : — 

" Not in the desert art thou, son of Hodeirah, abandoned." 

And in the same poem (Thalaba, Book ii.), in the very 
next stanza, two lines occur which, if written in one, are 
also a hexameter, though a very slight change is necessary 
for the same reason : — 

" In the Domdaniel caverns 
Under the roots of the ocean." 

Altered thus : — 

" In the Domdaniel caverns beneath the roots of the ocean." 

In vain, therefore, shall the nice academic ear rebel 
against Mr. Southey 's grand innovation, on purely philo- 
logical grounds. The learned Laureate knew his subject 
and his position too well ; and not without good reason, 
assuredly, had he " long been of opinion that an English 
metre might be constructed in imitation of the ancient 



288 REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 

hexameter, which would be perfectly consistent with the 
character of our language, and capable of great richness, 
variety, and strength." x But there is something more in 
the matter. A whole army of English habits, feelings, 
and associations remains behind ; and these, call them 
prejudices if you will, are a matter which no great poet 
appealing through the people's language to the people's 
ear, and the people's heart, much less any mere translator, 
can afford to disregard. The fact is, even Mr. Southey 
himself, with the true instinct of genius, felt much less 
confidence in the result of this " experiment," than in that 
other of the unrhymed and irregular rhythm which in 
his Thaldha he ushered into the British world with such 
admirable propriety, as "the Arabesque ornament of an 
Arabian tale." Thalaba is an oriental epic, as singularly 
original and felicitous in its manner as in its matter ; no 
student of English literature can afford to be ignorant of it ; 
but the Vision of Judgment remains a pious curiosity in 
the subject as much as the style, and, except as a curiosity, 
has occupied no place in the series of the higher British 
poetry of the nineteenth century. What then are these 
feelings and associations with which we have to deal in 
this matter ? And are they such as should permanently 
stand in the way of a new school of translated literature, 
or are they likely to yield ? On this point our opinion 
decidedly is, that the feelings of the English public on 
this subject are strong and invincible, and that they 
neither can, nor ought to yield. What they are, and on 
what they are founded, we need not particularly inquire. 
Some of them, no doubt, are foolish enough, and sound 
when put into an articulate shape, just as all nonsense 
does when pertly stilting itself into the attitude of 

1 Preface to Vision of Judgment, 



REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 289 

reason ; but in so far as they may be founded on the 
principle above enunciated, that the English dactylic, or 
more properly tribrachic measure, as the natural elocu- 
tional correlative of triple time in music, is essentially a 
measure of lyrical elevation ; and by its own nature, as 
we]l as by the undeviating usage of the English language, 
not adapted for the calm and equable flow of old epic 
narrative : if this be the case, as we could prove at great 
detail, then this host of rebellious feelings and associations 
is entitled to something more than a mere prudent regard 
at the hands of any artificer of English verse ; and in 
particular, it deserves serious consideration, whether the 
English hexameter, though unobjectionable on purely 
general grounds for some purposes, is therefore the fit 
measure, on aesthetical principles, for rendering the 
Homeric hexameter. For in this argument it must always 
be borne in mind, that the English hexameter is one 
thing, and the Homeric another. But, bating these con- 
siderations altogether, and treating the English feelings 
with regard to hexameter verse as a mere bundle of habits 
and associations, — still, as use and wont in all questions 
of language must have a great deal to say, there are the 
best possible reasons why, in the present matter, they 
should not be interfered with. No doubt Coleridge and 
Southey and Shelley, greeted though they were with 
sneers and contemptuous laughter on their first appear- 
ance, have done a great deal to enlarge the metrical con- 
ceptions of John Bull ; but a good rhymer will wisely not 
put his patience to too severe a test in this direction, for 

I many valid reasons, but principally for this, that every 
good rhymer is neither a Southey nor a Shelley. In vain, 

' also, shall we plead in behalf of English hexameters the 
example of our neighbours, the Germans ; not, indeed, 

T 



: 



290 REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 

because their language possesses any peculiar structural 
superiority which might avail them here/ but because the 
cases are not only not parallel, but altogether opposite. 
As a general rule, indeed, it may be laid down, that any- 
thing peculiarly and characteristically German — so differ- 
ent is the national mind- — will not suit the English taste ; 
but the real want of parallelism lies in this, that the Ger- \ 
man polite literature is but of yesterday. Klopstock, 
Goethe, and Schiller are the fathers of their literature 
and were in a position, like Ennius among the Romans, 
and Dante among the Italians, to stamp authority upon 
whatsoever strange rhythm they chose to adopt. They 
have done so, and with the most signal success, as every- 
body knows ; for, whatever certain narrow English critics 
may say, no man that has an ear for the melody of German 
poetry will deny that Goethe's elegies, written in the 
Ovidian stanza, are perfect models of rhythmical har- 
mony, and fill the ear with as grateful a sweetness as 
anything in Tibullus or the Sulmonian himself. All this, 
however, makes nothing for us. Had Shakespeare and 
Milton and Dryden used the hexameter as plentifully as 
the three German masters just named, no doubt they 
were in a condition, by the mastery of their glorious 
minds, to prescribe a new rhythmical law to that public 
ear, which now, being old, and strong in a different habit, 
prescribes limits to the rhythmical artists of the present 
age. But Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden had too mucfc 

1 They have fewer monosyllables, cer- accessory points ; and that the mail 

tainly, than we have, their verbs and objections made to English hexame 

the cases of their nouns being mostly ters, on the score of structure, apph 

dissyllables from which we have cut equally to the German. Surely thi 

off the termination ; and the trochaic fact might have made our Tillbrook 

movement, commencing with the accent, pause a little in the fierce onset o 

is more natural to them. But prac- their Quixotic wrath against the Lau 

tice has shown that these are merely reate ! 



REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 291 

common sense, and sound British conservatism, if you like, 
'•to coquette with merely formal innovations of this kind. 
It is extremely doubtful, indeed, whether, on purely 
sesthetical principles, Klopstock and Goethe were defen- 
sible in what they did ; certainly if their innovation was 
proper, it was proper only for such a people of erudite 
cosmopolites as the Germans, and forms no precedent on 
which other nations are entitled to act. 

The matter then comes to a very short issue. The 
man who, after the experiments which have already been 
made, shall sit down to write a translation of the Iliad 
in English hexameters, must do so with the full con- 
sciousness that he is making a very delicate and doubt- 
ful experiment against the literary use and wont of a 
highly cultivated language, and against the banded asso- 
ciations and prepossessions of a whole people, "peculiarly 
intolerant of such innovations." Is there a motive suffi- 
ciently strong to induce a literary man to embark in 
a literary adventure of this description ? The enterprise, 
no doubt, is a brave one ; it carries with it a magnificent 
sound ; we cannot but be carried away with so fair an 
idea — a literal English Facsimile of the world-revered 

" Blind old man of Scio's rocky isle," 

hose works are, and have been, and in all likelihood 
will for ever remain, at once the spelling-book and the 
Bible of all sublunar poetry. But let us beware of being 
robbed of our sesthetical senses by this one idea of a fac- 
simile, which it must be confessed has something of the 
mechanical in its nature, and may achieve wonderful like- 
nesses — as Photography does — only without the soul. A 
nan, after he is hanged, looks sufficiently like himself 
oefore that operation ; and a man who is drunk has the 



292 REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 

same eyes, nose, and mouth, as when he is sober. But 
these likenesses are not pleasant. " Death," as Goethe 
said, "is a bad portrait-painter;" so also is Drink and 
Photography. In practice, indeed, the facsimile prin 
ciple must be constantly modified by another one, which 
we have not yet distinctly stated, though it lies involved 
in the wide domain of what we have termed the style, 
character, and expression of a language, and the associa- 
tions connected with them. This principle is, that a 
translator is bound to transfer every measure of his 
original into that measure of his oivn language, which, 
in its style, character, associations, and effects, corre 
sponds to his model. It is upon this principle that 
the iambic trimeter of Greek tragedy is universally, 
in England, translated, not into an English trimeter, 
in number of feet and order of pauses the literal counter 
part of the original, but into that ten-syllabled iambic 
verse, whose character and habit and expression, as 
formed by the familiar use of our native poetry, corre- 
spond to the iambic trimeter as familiarly used by the 
Greeks. In other words, in translating the dialogic part 
of the Greek drama, we do not give the mechanical, but 
the sesthetical facsimile of the Greek measure; and this 
for the best of all possible reasons, that more would be 
lost in the spirit by disturbing the familiar metrical 
associations of our modern readers, than is gained in the 
letter, by adhering with mechanical exactness to the 
ancient model. That this is the true reason why no one 
thinks of translating the Greek trimeters into Englisl 
ones of the same structure, is quite plain ; for nothing 
can be more natural to the English tongue than anj 
iambic movement ; and Greek trimeters may be trollec 
off from the British tongue, as glibly as any hexameters, so* 



BE MARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 293 

soon as the ear is fairly won over to the trick. Thus the 
two first lines of the Prometheus might be done into 
Greek-English, thus — 

At length arrive we, at this uttermost bourne of earth — 
Bleak Scythia's wide-spread, lone untrodden solitude ! 

and so ad infinitum, more Germanorum ; for our trans- 
Bhenane brethren deal in iambics as well as in hexa- 
meters, Goethe having set them a notable example in 
the second part of Faust, though truly their translators 
ask for no high stamp of this kind, but systematically 

, twist and turn and torture themselves with mimetic 
minuteness after every iambic, trochaic or dactylic variation 
of which the various sweep of the Greek lyric is capable. 
Whether they are right in this procedure, so far as their 
own language is concerned, let themselves judge ; we 

t know that high names, William Humboldt among others, 
have sanctioned the practice ; but we are extremely 

i doubtful whether, on the principles of sesthetical science, 

i it be defensible ; we doubt much whether anything is 

i gained by this syllabic scrupulosity which can compen- 
sate for the grace, ease, and nature, which is undoubtedly 
sacrificed; and we think, generally, that in this, as in 

[ some other minute points of scholarship, our Teutonic 
brethren, or masters should we not rather say, in scholar- 
ship, are not without a certain superstition. Accuracy 
is a good thing ; but there are certain living hues and 

i tints in the floating element of poetic emotion that will 
not be measured by inches ; and a better likeness will 
sometimes be made without looking anxiously at every 
hair in a man s beard. As for ourselves, we may rest 
firmly assured that the British good sense, for which we 
are famous, will preserve us from any metrical aberrations 



294 REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 

of this kind. English Iambic trimeters, however well suited 
to our language, so far as structure is concerned, beside 
their novelty, are objectionable on another ground, which, 
perhaps, does not apply to hexameters. Their scope is 
too great for the original from which they are copied ; 
that is to say, the difference of the languages is such 
that an English trimeter will contain more sense and less 
sound than the Greek, within the same limits. This will 
be obvious to any person who compares the second line 
in the Prometheus — 

^kvOtjv e? oljAOVy aftarov et? eprj/juav, 

with our version above given, where we have been obliged 
to interpolate a few epithets in order to fill up the room. 
Now, though the line-for-line system is altogether out of 
the question in translating from the ancient languages 
into the modern, still there are reasons why the trans- 
lator should choose a measure, where he can, of the same 
compass as his original : a measure with which he can 
conveniently give line for line when convenient, and 
which does not throw in his way any temptation illegiti- 
mately to contract or expand. 

One other remark on the hexameter, and we have 
done. The remark just made as to the compass of the 
translating instrument contains the true reason why our 
heroic couplet, used by Pope, is so difficult to handle in 
the rendering of Homer or Virgil. It is not long enough 
for two hexameters, and it is too long for one ; this, 
along with its tendency to make the pause too frequently 
coincide with the rhyme, and thus break the natural flow 
of the rhythm, seems to point it out as an unsuitable — at 
least so far as structure is concerned, as an extremely 
inconvenient — English substitute for the hexameter. If, 



REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 295 

on account of epic associations, our ten-syllabled verse is 
to be used in rendering Homer, there can be no question 
that, in this particular matter, Cowper was nearer the 
mark than Pope, and that, in this case, blank verse is 
preferable to rhyme. But it admits, we think, of the 
clearest proof on the strictest sesthetical principles — 
principles which it might go hard even with our hardy 
German friends to disprove — that the proper English 
correlative of the Greek hexameter of Homer (Virgil may 
be different) is Chapman's old iambic verse of fourteen 
syllables ; or better still — because, like dactylic verse, it 
commences with the accent — the trochaic measure of 
fifteen syllables, so felicitously used by Mr. Tennyson 
in his luxuriant poem, Locksley Hall. These measures, 
especially the latter, possess every quality that an intelli- 
gent admirer of Homer could wish for the purpose of 
producing a translation that shall, not merely in the 
letter, but in the spirit, and in the whole style and tone, 
be as much as possible a facsimile of the original. 1 The 
only doubt that can be stated is, whether this measure, 
iambic or trochaic, should be used with or without rhyme. 
Against rhyme it may well be pleaded that, though John 
Bull's prejudices in favour of this tinkling appendage are 
no doubt strong, the charm of novelty in the hands of 
some great creative genius might readily be stronger ; an 
instance of very graceful and enjoyable English trochaic 
verse without rhyme our translated literature already 
possesses in Milman s version of the Sanscrit tale of Nala 
and Damayanti ; and there seems little doubt that in 
regard to literal accuracy, which in such a venerable 

1 For specimens of Homer in trochaic W. E. Gladstone. 2d edition. Lon- 
verse, see " Translations " by Lord don, 1863 ; and Blackwood's Magazine, 
Lyttleton and the Eight Honourable 1839, by Aytoun. 



296 REMARKS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 

old minstrel as Homer will always be valued, an un- 
rhymed version will have a certain advantage over a 
rhymed one. On the other hand, it is quite plain that it 
requires a great creative genius — a man somewhat in the 
position of Goethe in Germany — to disturb the rhythmi- 
cal habitude of a full-grown literature like the English ; 
and, in an assthetical point of view, the want of har- 
monious flow in our verses arising from our abundance in 
stout monosyllables, and the loss of those euphonious 
terminations so characteristic of Greek and Sanscrit, finds 
its natural compensation in that recurrent consonance 
of final syllables at certain definite intervals which we 
call rhyme. And as for literal accuracy, for those who 
want to spell Homer curiously, as a record of old Greek 
times, a literal prose translation with the Greek appended, 
in the fashion of Dr. Carlyle's translation of Dante, will 
be found to be the only form that will satisfy all demands. 
In a poetical version literal accuracy is one of the great 
mistakes of the present age, fostered by the microscopic 
habits of our University scholars, certain to produce a 
strong reaction — the sooner the better. It is not verbal 
accuracy, but character and spirit, melody and grace, that 
are required in a poetical version of a great poet ; without 
which qualities indeed it has no meaning, and can show 
no reason for its existence. Your so-called " literal and 
rhythmical version " — of which kind I call to mind a 
rare specimen by Sewell of iEschylus' Agamemnon — will 
always present more or less of the attitude of a dance 
in fetters, which, though the links gleam with gold, and 
tinkle with silver, can never improve the dancing. To 
all true poetry there belongs a spontaneity, that, like 
the carols of sweet birds in the May, can hold no terms 
with a constant mechanical pressure from without. 



POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE.* 

The literature of modern Greece is a phrase that 
may sound strange to some ears, just as there are 
honourable and right honourable gentlemen who annually 
bring down so many brace of grouse on the Highland 
moors, who never heard the names of Duncan M'Intyre, 
Rob Donn, Alastair M 'Donald, or any other of the stout 
band of Celtic singers, who have from time to time 
stirred the silence of the glens with the vigorous pulses 
of their Mountain Muse. But no person who has had 
his eyes open to what has been going on in Greece for 
nearly a hundred years since the contagion of the great 
French Revolution began to operate in that quarter will 
be prepared to expect, that, where the political world was 
shaken from its foundation, the intellectual world remained 
stagnant. On the contrary, it was in Greece as in Italy ; 
the way for political movement was paved by intellectual 
ferment, and scholars, thinkers, and singers appeared as 
the preparatory Avatar of men who afterwards drew the 
eyes of Europe as soldiers, diplomatists, and statesmen. 
No doubt modern Greek literature is still a very humble 
thing ; but as the botanist does not despise a plant merely 
because it is small, so the intelligent student of the vast 

* 1. Carmina Popularia Graecorum. Turkey, by the Rev. Henry Fanshaw 

Passow. Lipsise, 1860. Tozer. London, 1869. Chapter xxvnr. 

2. Neugriechische Anthologie, von 4. "Ao-fiara Stj/jlotiko. ttjs EXXdbos vno 
Dr. Theodor Kind. 2te Ausgabe. ZafineXiov. Corcyra, 1852. 

3. Researches in the Highlands of 



298 POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 

literature of Greece may have good reason to look on the 
artless lay whistled by some brigand boy in a Thessalian 
glen as of more interest, both philologicallyand aesthetically, 
than the most ambitious structures of the erudite Alex- 
andrian Muse, on which some of the greatest of modern 
scholars have spent the best electricity of their brains. 
It was not indeed possible, in accordance with the laws of 
growth which govern the moral no less than the physical 
world, that a first-class Neo-Hellenic literature should 
have sprung up in the present epoch of tentative national 
reconstitution. The physical, through the whole order of 
things of which we are a part, is the indispensable basis of 
the intellectual ; and a country grasping painfully after 
the first elements of material prosperity can never produce 
a rich and vigorous national literature. As easily could 
Dante have appeared in the days when Lombards, 
Romans, Gauls, Normans and Saracens were fighting 
about the possession of a few duchies in Apulia; as 
readily could the tragic grace of Racine, and the charming 
mysticism of Madame Guyon have been contemporary 
with King Clovis and his rude Franks, as that a great 
poet should appear amid the physical desolation and pro- 
stration under which Greece has suffered for so many cen- 
turies. All that a reasonable man can expect from the 
modern Greek mind is, that it should show itself by in- 
dubitable symptoms to be alive ; that there should be a 
healthy national feeling in the masses ; and that it should 
be in general no less true of the modern than of the 
ancient Greeks, — that they " seek after wisdom." We 
should hope to see among this people, if they are truly 
the sons of their fathers, in the first p]ace a large spirit of 
appropriation ; for only by adopting and assimilating the 
intellectual productions of the leading nations of Europe, 



POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE, 299 

can the modern Greeks hope to assert their place among 
the cultivated nations of the West. This is the law of 
nature. Nations, like individuals, must learn from their 
superiors before they can aspire to teach. The premature 
originality of ignorance, or of the solitary self-taught stu- 
dent, is a frothy soap-bubble, easily created and easily 
destroyed. Of this great truth the Greeks have shown 
by their conduct, from the days of Adamantine Corais 
downwards, that they are profoundly aware. That 
great scholar and true patriot felt deeply two truths on 
which the progress of the Greek people during the last 
sixty years has mainly depended— -first, that intellectual 
culture was with the Greeks, in competition with the 
Turks, the surest lever of national independence ; and 
again, that the intellectual culture of a people with such 
a rich inheritance from the past must be based on a 
thorough knowledge of their own classical literature. 
Nor were these the thoughts of Corais only ; they were 
the thoughts of the people of whom he was the most 
accomplished spokesman. Hence his influence ; hence 
their whole career from the establishment of the famous 
schools at Kydonia, Scios, and Yannina, to the erection 
of such noble educational buildings as the 'Apaatcetov, 1 
or Young Ladies' Academy, and the Othonian University 
of Athens. The nourishing condition of this latter estab- 
lishment alone — an establishment in its place no less 
efficient in every sense than Oxford and Cambridge are 
in theirs ; — this fresh-sprung University, with its well- 
marshalled lines of accomplished professors, and troops of 
eager-eyed students, would be a sufficient proof of the 

1 The ' ApaaKelov is a splendid new ace and the University stand, a little 

building, erected by the munificence of more to the north, and on the opposite 

a private individual, on the same ele- side of the street. No man who sees 

vated ground on which the king's pal- this building can despair of Greece. 



300 POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 

wonderful intellectual activity of the people, even were 
there not a single printed book in the language. But 
there is no lack of books. The press of Athens within 
the last fifty years has been uncommonly active. A city, 
whose population does not exceed that of Perth, supplies 
intellectual nourishment to its inhabitants in the shape 
of at least half a dozen literary and political papers, some 
of which contain essays on the great questions of the 
day, written with a talent and a command of language 
of which the first newspaper in England would have no 
cause to be ashamed. As for more bulky performances 
the Greeks have now excellent systematic treatises on 
most branches of science, composed by men who, to the 
native shrewdness of their race, add the most varied 
acquirements from the great laboratories of French acute- 
ness and German erudition. If the works of such men 
as Rangabe, Asopius, Paparogopoulos, Valettas, Bilettas, 
Mistriotes, Satha, Zampelios, Maurophrudes, Basiades, and 
a host of others, are not better known in this country, 
it arises partly from a certain pedantic superciliousness 
with which English scholars were accustomed to look on 
every product of Greek literature not within a certain artifi- 
cially circumscribed domain called " classical ;" partly from 
the fact that these highly-gifted and well-instructed per- 
sons, as Mr. Brandis suggests, 1 have, with a patriotic self- 
denial, been less anxious about their European reputation 
as authors, than about their Greek usefulness as teachers. 
At the present moment, indeed, Greece requires that all 
the energies of her best men shall be devoted to the great 
work of public instruction ; and no man who knows the 
elements of which the present academic staff in Athens is 
composed will doubt that she has in this respect been 

1 Mitlheilungen iXber Griechenland, von C. A. Brandis, Ster Theil. Leipzig, 1S42. 



POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 301 

most faithful to herself. All these scientific and lite- 
rary works, moreover, whether original or translated, are 
written in a style of Hellenic elegance and purity, which 
even the Greeks themselves twenty years ago would have 
deemed impossible. So swift is progress in the rhetorical 
department when the nimble Greek wit sets itself seri- 
ously to use the materials offered by the rich and flexible 
Greek tongue. 

Of works bearing the type of a fresh nationality — 
without which the best foreign appropriation could pro- 
duce only a meagre result — the modern Greeks present 
us in the first place with the military memoirs of Per- 
rhcebus, highly esteemed by Niebuhr, and other historical 
and biographical works. True it is, that the modern 
Hellenes are not likely to produce an account of their 
own great exploits in the late war, which shall surpass 
that of our own countryman, Gordon, in accuracy and 
impartiality ; but a liberal dash of patriotic colouring will 
be readily forgiven as much to a modern Greek Tricoupi, 
as to an ancient Roman Livy ; and in this department 
we advise all Hellenistic students to keep their eyes open, 
as new books are now issuing from the press, and others 
are shortly expected, that will give to the recent national 
history that prominence in the new national literature 
to which it is so justly entitled. In the meantime, those 
students of Greek literature who consider a modern 
Hydriote Miaulis as interesting a human character as 
an ancient Phormio, will find the true spirit of the Greek 
revolt, perhaps, most effectively reflected in the popular 
ballads, whose authorship is unknown, and in some of 
the political and patriotic poetry of Alexandros Soutzos. 
The popular ballads of the modern Greeks, the rpayovSia 
Pa/iai/cd, are indeed, as evidences of a healthy national 



302 POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 

vitality, superior to any literary product of the national 
mind that has yet appeared. Popular poetry, like wild 
plants to the botanist, has to the man of refined taste 
always a certain "value beyond its inherent worth as 
poetry, merely because it is popular. Even the vulgar 
epigrams of Martial, replete as they are with low. puns 
and filthy buffoonery, are, as the exponents of the corrupt 
life of imperial Rome, of far greater value to the literary 
historian than some of the most finished odes of Horace. 
Whatever faults they have, they are plants which look 
like the soil whence they sprung ; and that is always 
pleasing to a scientific eye. So these Romaic ballads are 
simple enough, certainly ; they are, many of them, mere 
voices or breathings of the popular life, with very little 
poetic genius, and little or no artistic skill ; still they 
have a fragrance of nature about them, and a fresh- 
ness, such as vigorous pedestrians delight to snuff up 
from brown moors and green fields, envying not at all the 
strong aroma that flows from exuberant prairies flushed 
with the living gold and purple of a tropical vegetation. 
Unquestionably inferior to our Scottish poetry of the 
same class in variety of dramatic element, in the fine play 
of humour, and in rhythmical compass, they are at the 
same time so truly popular, and so thoroughly Greek, 
that whosoever loves Greece must love them. For our- 
selves we are free to confess, that if a public bonfire of 
Greek lyric poetry were to be made after the fashion of 
Don Quixote's library in Cervantes, we should put in a 
strong word of intercession in favour of the lisping Homers 
of Souli and Maina, while the polished prettinesses of the 
classical anthology, and trim voluptuousness of the real 
and the pseudo-Anacreon were postponed. It is in- 
credible, indeed, what a stomach certain people have for 



POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 303 

Greek within the arbitrary line of a certain established 
philology, while everything beyond that is naught. 
Learned men will munch stone and gravel out of long- 
worked and authorized beds, while the honey -laden thymy 
banks in regions of less orthodox research are left to 
waste their fragrance and their sweets on solitude. There 
is a natural preference no doubt in favour of antiquity, 
which has its value without university walls as well as 
within them ; but a wise man will not. allow himself to 
be so befooled by a venerable old grey stone, however 
large, as to prefer it seriously to the magnificent dome 
of a living St. Peter's. A vile daub, though guaranteed 
from the hand of St. Luke himself, is, after all the pious 
and artistic sentiment you can spend upon it, only a 
daub ; and the worst picture that ever George Harvey 
painted is, to a sane eye, in reality worth more, though 
the picture-dealers and the virtuosos talk less about it. 
Viewed in this light, the Romaic ballads will always 
form a most important department of the lyrical riches 
of the Greek language, even to those who know that 
there was not a drop of Greek blood in the body of Marco 
Bozzari. 1 He and the other brave Albanese heroes of 
the war of independence were swallowed up by the over- 
powering influence of Greek civilisation, and became 
Greeks, just as Lucan and Seneca, though Spanish born, 
became Romans. 

To discuss this popular poetry fully, and to bring out 
distinctly the traits of national history and character 
with which it is replete, would require a volume. We 
can only indulge ourselves at present in giving one or two 

1 " The soldiers of Souli, and the banian race, unaltered by any mixture 

sailors of Hydra, the bravest warriors, of Hellenic blood. — Finlay, Mediaeval 

and the most skilful mariners, in the Greece and Trebizond, p. 39. 
late struggle, were of the purest Al- 



304 POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 

specimens of translation from our own portfolio. The ballad 
poetry is remarkable for being in the general case not 
rhymed ; a classical feature which we hope may conciliate 
some academic reader. This feature the German trans- 
lator, the well-known philhellene, Wilhelm Muller, has 
preserved. 1 We shall generally follow his example. The 
following little piece was much admired by Goethe : — 

Charon and the Souls. 

"Why are the hills so dusky dark, so dark and sable-shrouded? 

Is it the wind that flouts the crag, or is it the rain that's beating ? " 

" 'Tis not the wind that flouts the crag, 'tis not the rain that's beating ; 

'Tis only Charon with his dead, that o'er the hills is treading. 

The young he drives before his path, the old he drags behind him ; 

The children, and the weeping babes, he on his saddle bindeth. 

The old beseech the rider grim, the young with tears implore him — 

' Charon, halt where the cottage smokes, where the fountain cool is flowing, 

The old will drink the water clear, the young will fling the pebbles, 

The children with their tender arms, will pluck the flowers so blooming.' 

' I will not halt where the cottage smokes, nor where the fount is flowing ; 

For mothers would come to the fountain clear, and know their weeping children, 

And wives would know their husbands dear, nor would allow the parting.' " 

This Charon, or Death, is a great figure in the popular 
poetry of the modern Greeks, and is one of the very few, 
perhaps the only mythological personage which Byzantine 
orthodoxy, and Slavonian barbarism, have left to haunt 
the hills of Greece from the fair company that once 
peopled Olympus. Here is another in which that grim 
ferryman of the ferruginous boat assumes the functions of 
the ancient Nemesis, and rebukes the pride of life in one 
who is too young to know that " He that glorieth should 
glory in the Lord" : — 

Charon and the Maiden. 

A fair young maid was boasting high she feared no harm from Charon, 
Nine brothers she had, and Constantine was soon to be her husband, 

1 Miiller's edition of the ballads was immediately following their publication 
published at Leipzig in 1825, the year by Fauriel at Paris. 



POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 305 

Who owned four lofty palaces, and was lord of many houses. 

But Charon changed his shape, and came like to a black-winged swallow, 

And flew athwart, and shot the maid i' the heart with his deadly arrow ; 

And her mother wept when she beheld, her mother wept full sorely. 

"0 Charon, cruel was thy aim, thy shot that smote my daughter, 

My dear-loved girl, my only child, in all her youth and beauty ! " 

Then from the far and mountain glen came Constantine the bridegroom, 

With four-score men, and sixty-two to harp the bridal music. 

" Have done with glee, my trusty men ; ye harpers, cease your harping ; 

A cross I see before the door of my bride's mother's dwelling. 

Belike, belike, her mother is dead, her mother or else her father ; 

Or of her brothers one hath been sore wounded in the battle." 

He spurs his steed, his good black steed, and to the church he cometh, 

And finds the master-mason there, where he a tomb is building. 

" God bless thee, master- mason, say, whose tomb here art thou building ? " 

" For the maid so fair, with yellow hair and dark eyes, I am building ; 

Nine brothers had she, and Constantine was soon to be her husband, 

Who owned four lofty palaces, and was lord of many mansions." 

" master-mason, master fine, I pray thee, speed thy building, 

A little larger make the tomb, a tomb to hold two bodies." 

He took his golden-hilted sword, and in his heart he plunged it ; 
And in that tomb they buried two, the maid and the youth that loved her. 



The above two ballads are from FaurieFs collection, 
and exhibit the general type of the short Romaic rpayovSi, 
both in matter and manner. The rhythm is one suffi- 
ciently familiar to our ear, and handled not without a 
tincture of that sleepy monotony and canorous iteration — 
so different from the varied swing of Homer — in which 
the uncultivated popular ear delights. The following is 
from Dr. Kind's little volume, and is rhymed : — 

The Clepths. 

From the hills the Clepths came down, 
Seeking horses to their mind ; 
Horses none when they could find, 
All my pretty lambs they stole, 
Lambs and kids they took the whole. 

And away, away they go ! 
woe's me ! woe's me, waly wo ! 

My lambs aw x ay 

And my kids took they ; 
woe's me, woe ! 

U 



30G POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE 



II. 

And the pail in which I pour 
The creaming milk, away they bore ; 
And the pipe to which I sing, 
Rudely from my hands they wring. 
And away, away they go ! 
O woe's me ! woe's me, waly wo ! 
My lambs away 
And my kids took they ; 
O woe's me, woe ! 



And they took away outright, 
With its horns of silver white, 
My brave belwether, that outrolled 
Its shaggy fleece of flowing gold. 

And away, away they go ! 
woe's me ! woe's me, waly wo 
My lambs and my wether 
They stole together ; 
woe's me, woe ! 



Would to God some vengeful hand 
Might seize the lawless robber band 
In their dens ; and sheer undo 
Them, and all their thievish crew ! 
That I might see ray brave belwether, 
And my lambs again together 
In the fold. — waly woe ! 
My lambs away 
And my kids took they ; 
O woe's me, woe ! 



If the All-holy in the skies 

The ruthless robbers will chastise, 

I will roast a lamb till it 

Fall in pieces from the spit ; 

Mid flowers that tell of coming May, 

On holy George's festal day, 

I'll feast, and bless the queen all-holy, 

That laid the ruthless robbers lowly, 
O woe's me ! woe's me, waly wo ! 
My lambs away 
And my kids took they ; 
woe's me, woe ! 



POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE, 307 

This song is characteristic enough, both of what cer- 
tain parts of Greece are now, and of what certain parts 
of Scotland were not much above a hundred years ago. 
There is nothing in Greek brigandage but what belongs 
to the history of all nations at a certain stage of civilisa- 
tion. The last verse with its prominent imprecation of 
the Virgin Mary, the all-holy (irava^la) queen of heaven, 
and Saint George, and the act of worship of which the 
roasting of a whole sheep forms a principal part, is pecu- 
liarly Neo-Hellenic, and will suggest to those who have 
visited Greece many a pleasant picture of rustic piety of 
which they may have been spectators. 

The Klepths, whose harsh treatment of the poor pea- 
santry is recorded in the above, to our taste, extremely 
beautiful little threnody, would, however, appear to pos- 
terity in an altogether inadequate light, if such poems 
were all that remained of the popular estimate of their 
character. But so far from being talked of habitually as 
thieves, and robbers, and plunderers, they appear to the 
popular imagination rather in the glorified aspect of the 
Saxon Robinhood and the Gaelic MacGregor. Lawless 
by the necessity of their position rather than the native 
vice of their character, they have been handed down to 
posterity as the impersonations of manly independence, 
and the champions of national liberty. Their persistent 
defiance of the hated Turk has thrown, for the most part, 
a fair veil of charity over their occasional rude neglect of 
the princip]es of meum and tuum in their dealings with 
their fellow-countrymen. Forgotten or forgiven as plun- 
derers, in popular song they are canonized as patriots ; 
and their achievements accordingly, not particularly in- 
teresting to the general reader now, will, to the student 
of history, ever remain as interesting historical records, 



308 POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 

playing, in their wild way, the natural prelude to the 
great national resurrection in 1821. The following are 
fair specimens of the specifically Klepthic ballads : — 

Christos Milionis. 
Three little birds upon the hill beside the camp had lighted ; 
The one looked towards Armyros, the other towards Valtas ; 
The third, the best of all the three, thus warbled and lamented : — 
" Tell me, kind Sir, what thou dost know of Christos Milionis. 
Where he may be ? — nor Valtos now nor Kriabrisi knows him. 
He marched across the land, they say, with his brave men to Arta, 
And captive took the Cadi there, and a brace of Agas with him. 
This when the Mooselim did hear, his soul was wroth within him, 
To Mauromati he did call, and to Moochtar Pleisoora, 
' Good Sirs, if ye will eat your bread in peace, and keep your places, 
- Come kill me Christos, cut me down that brigand chief Milionis ; 
The Sultan thus doth give command expressly by this firman ! ' 
The Friday's sun shone bright — would God that sun had never risen — 
And Sooliman was sent to find the Captain Milionis. 
At Armyros he found the chief, and a friendly greeting gave him. 
All night they drained the brimming cup until the day was dawning. 
And when the day shone brightly forth they to the camp did wend them. 
Then Sooliman thus spake aloud to Captain Milionis : — 
Christos, the Sultan sends for thee, the Agas bids me seize thee, 
For well they know, while Christos lives, no Turkish law he owneth. 
With pointed guns they rushed and stood the one against the other, 
Gave fire on fire till prostrate both upon the ground lay bleeding." 

Olympos and Kissabos. 
Olympus high and Kissabos once hotly strove together. 
Olympus turns to Kissabos, and thus to him he speaketh : — 
" Strive not with me thou lowly hill, thou in the dust art trodden, 
The old Olympus high am I, through all the w T orld so famous. 
My lofty peaks are forty-two, and sixty-two my fountains, 
At every well a banner, and at every tree a brigand ; 
And on my loftiest peak of all alone there sits an eagle, 
And in his claws he holds the head of a valiant chief departed." 
" What hast thou done, my wretched head, what sin art thou atoning ? 
Eat, bird, my young and lusty flesh, and batten on my manhood, 
'Twill give thy wings an ell, thy nails a span of strong addition. 
A valiant Armatole was I in Xerimeros and in Louros, 
In Chassia and Olympus high twelve years I lived a robber ; 
Sixty Agas with my hand I killed, and burned their hamlets, 
And left so many on the field of Turks, and of Albanians, 
That none, thou kingly bird, can count the slaves that there lay bleeding 
At last the fate of war was mine, and bloody death befell me." 

Mr. Tozer, in his valuable account of a tour made 
through regions seldom footed by the regular tourist, has 



POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 309 

made the just remark that there are many things both in 
the tone and the contents of these ballads which remind 
us forcibly of Homer. As to the tone and style of these 
productions, he who does not see in them and in Homer 
the peculiarly distinctive character of a floating poetry 
made to be sung by the people, and not read in books, 
has yet to learn the alphabet of the language that Homer 
used, and which gives his poems then peculiar and char- 
acteristic value. As to the materials it is equally certain, 
judging not only by the Romaic, but by the Servian and 
other popular ballads, that the historical element is always 
one of the strongest roots out of which they grew ; and 
nothing can be further removed from the essential genius 
of all Greek poetry than to wipe out from it, with an in- 
genious brush, every trace of strict personal reality, and to 
occupy the stage of the popular memory altogether with 
oriental allegories about light and darkness, dissolution 
and regeneration, and other favourite figures of a panthe- 
istic theology. In the great struggle which resulted in 
the restoration of a little Greek kingdom in the south of 
Greece, the Klepthic ballad naturally elevated itself into 
the specifically historical ballad, of which the following 
may be taken as a good example : — 

The Taking of Teipolitza. 

Dark and dreary was the day, all night the snow was drifting, 

When Kiamel Bey the order gave to march to Tripolitza. 

He saddled his horse at the midnight hour, he shoed his horse at midnight, 

And as he marched along the road, thus prayed to God in heaven : — 

" Give me, thou mighty God, to find the bishops and the primates, 

That they their heads may pledge to me for these rebellious Rajas, 

Nor let them join the brigand chiefs who rise against their masters." 

When Kiamel Bey was in the fort, the Greeks encamped around him, 

They hedged the Turk there closely in, with war they vexed him sorely, 

And Colocotroni forward came, and cried from his tambouri : — 

" Come yield thee, yield thee, Kiamel Bey, to the band of Colocotroni, 

With life and limb you shall go hence, your wife, and all your children, 

Your harem fine shall go with you, and all your dainty household." 



310 POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 

'Tis well — 'tis well, ye gallant Greeks, and valiant Capitani, 

Brave Colocotroni's men we know ; we yield to Colocotroni. 

Up then a Booluk Baslia stood, and from a bastion cried he, — 

" To Eajas vile we will not yield, to filthy misbelievers, 

The fort is strong, the walls are sure, in Stamboul rules the Sultan. 

A goodly host we count, a band of young and lusty warriors, 

Five misbelieving dogs their sword, twice five their gun destroyeth, 

Fifteen from horses' back they kill, and thirty from the trenches." 

" Have at them, then ! — and let them see," cried valiant Colocotroni, 

" How true the shot of a Klepth can fly, how cuts a good Greek sabre, 

How on the Turk the Greek can rush, and how the Turk can stand him." 

Then Tuesday came, and Wednesday sad, and Thursday full of sorrow, 

And Friday's sun shone on the Turks (they wished they had never seen it), 

For then the Greeks stern counsel took to storm the fort ; and rushing, 

They swooped like eagles on the foe, like hawks they pounced upon them, 

And like a battery from their guns the eager shot came hailing. 

Then at the gate of good St. George came valiant Colocotroni, 

" Now fling your guns away, brave boys, and draw your shining sabres, 

And drive like sheep into the pen, these Turkish dogs before you ! " 

The Turks before them flew ; the Greeks within the fort enclosed them. 

Then the Kehaiah called aloud to valiant Colocotroni, 

" Come, quarter, quarter ! surely now enough of Turks lie bleeding." 

" Thou foul old Turk, what pratest thou — thou cursed misbeliever? 

"What quarter ? — Bitter quarter thou didst give us at Vostizza, 

Where our Greek brethren bled, as now thy Turks shall bleed, Kehaiah ! " 

So much for the warlike element ; the germ of some 
future Iliad all ready, if only the singing days would 
come back again, and the reading days cease all over the 
world gratefully for a season. Here follow two innocent 
little lullabies, that one finds it difficult to divorce from 
their native Greek without pain ; and a lisping address 
of a little girl to the moon — the feyydpi, as they now call 
it — on her way to the evening school after the hot toils of 
the day are over : — 

Lullabies. 

(1.) 

Sweet babe, your mother dear comes home ; 
From the stream where laurel grows, 
From the fount that sweetly flows, 
She will bring bright flow'rets home, 
Fragrant flowers that scent the air, 
Crimson pinks and roses fair. 



POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 311 

(2.) 

Sing a lullaby, Mary mild, 
Holy Sophia, sweetly sing, 
Take to thee the little child ! 
Bear it hence away with thee, 
That the little child may see 
Blossoms bright on every tree ; 
That the little child may hear 
All the sweet birds piping clear. 
Take the child and bring 't again 
That its father know no pain, 
And harshly chide the nurse that kept 
Careless watch when baby slept ; 
That its mother know no pain 
When she seeks her child in vain, 
That no sharp grief pierce her marrow, 
And her milk run sour with sorrow. 

Pretty moon that shines so brightly, 
Shine on me that I may go 
To the school, and trip it lightly ; 
That my letters I may know, 
Learn to stitch, and learn to sew, 
And with my years in grace to grow, 
And God's most holy will to know, 
Who walked on earth long time ago, 
Pretty, pretty moon ! 

Inferior in interest to the popular ballads, but still not 
without a strong claim on the attention of the lover of 
poetry, are the more cultivated efforts of the young Greek 
lyre — not flying voices of the undistinguished people, but 
distinct articulations of some known singer, and profes- 
sional student of verse. In this department of literature 
the Greeks have no doubt yet to look for their national 
spokesman. Instead of a poetical Napoleon, leading whole 
armies to the fields of harmonious conflict, and fiUing 
Europe with the sound of a succession of great battles, we 
have only a few expert skirmishers, and captains of the 
guerilla warfare of the Muses, whose exploits none hear of 
but those who visit the valleys where they are native. 
However high Panagiotes Soutzos might conceit himself 



312 POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 

to stand — and he has made some curious revelations of self- 
esteem in the *Aia>v and elsewhere — he may depend upon 
it the eyes of Europe are not directed to him at the pre- 
sent moment ; his Messiah, we are afraid, will never make 
one-tenth part of the noise in Europe that was made by 
that windy production of the same name, in which Klop- 
stock, the German Milton (" yes a very German Milton !") 
vented his vaporous piety. On a late occasion taking it 
up (for Sunday reading), before getting to the end of the 
first act, we were so afflicted with a languid sensation, 
similar to what oppresses the stomach after large potations 
of weak tea, that we could proceed no further. In The 
Wanderer of his brother Alexander, there are no doubt 
individual passages of considerable lyric power and sub- 
limity ; but, as a whole, it is merely a feeble and broken 
echo of Ghilde Harold. To condemn all the larger pro- 
ductions of the recent Greek Muse wholesale, we will not 
venture, because we have not read them ; but what we 
have read, besides a great deal of false and exaggerated 
sentiment, labours under the general vice of rhetorical 
diffuseness, which must be violently cut down, before any 
high excellence can be achieved. Among the lighter 
warblings of the lyre, however, we have found several 
pieces, and hope to find more, that well deserve a place 
in any collection of Greek lyric poetry ; and even in much 
that is feeble or exaggerated we have been delighted to 
recognise a flush of nationality that is powerful to lend 
an engaging charm even to weakness. Patriotism, like 
charity, covers a multitude of sins. In the following ode, 
for instance, of Karatsoutscas, there is much that is 
juvenile in style, and overworked in the sentiment ;* but 

1 Kind says that the author was only of the volume from which this extract 
twenty years of age at the publication is taken. 



POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 313 

is so thoroughly Greek, and expresses so powerfully 
from the hot heart of Hellenic patriotism the faith in a 
mighty past, and an impending future of national glory, 
that it must be read with very great pleasure by all who 
sympathize with the hopes at present animating the best 
minds in Greece : — 

Panhellenics. 



With Parnassus' laurel wreath, the wreath aye green and never fading, 
Green in face of frosty winter, and rude Boreas harsh-invading ; 
With the laurel I will wreathe my lyre, a song of freedom raising 
To my country, Greece and all her mighty glory truly praising ; 
Happy if my well-nerved hand shall strike no feebly falling measure, 
If the ears that love the land shall drink my loyal strain with pleasure, 

If with song while I commend thee, 
One kind glance of fair approval thou, my country dear, shalt lend me ! 

ii. 
For the Mars that wasted Creta, Greece a stole of sorrow weareth ; 
For the Mars that crushed fair Creta, Greece her locks of beauty teareth. 
Creta, when the Mars that crushed thee, marched his club of terror shaking, 
Brandishing the sword, which flashing fills the tyrant's heart with quaking, 
Darkened was the ray that cometh from the disk of Phoebus streaming ; 
From its base in darkness rooted, to its peak with white snow gleaming, 

Men beheld high Ida brightening, 
Saw the seat of Jove the Thunderer flaming with the frequent lightning. 

in. 
In the Sultan's hall, the Sultan's wisest counsellors assemble, 
Seize their white beards with their hands, and inly puzzled think and tremble, 
How thy patriot fire, Creta, they may quench with tyrant's knavery ; 
And the powers of Europe lend a helping hand to fix thy slavery, 
Ply with threats each dastard heart, and bait with golden wiles the traitor ; 
And amid the faithless crew, — shame, mockery of nature ! 

He, whom Greece had made defender 
Of her rights — her Consul — he was the first to cry — Surrender ! 

IV. 

And the Greek that loves his country, when he saw his Cretan brother, 
Prostrate, in his brother's breast the rising pity could he smother ? 
Was that sacred fire extinguished, that with generous inspiration, 
When the stranger dared to touch her, filled the wide Hellenic nation ? 
Did the graves not ope their jaws, and forth with wrathful resurrection 
Pvush the troops of harnessed shades, to pledge their father land's protection ? 

Did the past not fire the present, 
In the hall of every burgher, in the hut of every peasant ? 



314 POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 



V. 

No ! that fire is not extinguished in the heart of Hellas glowing ; 
It shall burn while earth shall stand, and while old Ocean's wave is flowing. 
Slavery oft hath stamped on slaves the love of their own degradation : 
But the type of years could never stamp with serf the free Greek nation. 
Cursed be they who bind the hands of Hellas when her bonds she breaketh ; 
Cursed who bar the gates of freedom, when the glorious start she taketh ; 

May the curse of Creeks united 
Lie upon them, like the Furies, when their breath consumes the blighted ! 



When the joyful news was speeded, that the sons of Crete had risen, 

All the people clapp'd their hands to hail the captive from his prison, 

All the women and the children leapt for joy ; and every temple 

Showed the votive gifts for thee, that none on thy young rights might trample. 

But the hope of Greeks was darkened, and their vows had no completion, 

And the men that hate her triumphed ; and their hatred found addition. 

Treachery vile hath triumphed o'er thee, 
Crete ; thou liest low ; and we in vain with bitter tears deplore thee. 



How should Europe, silly Europe, when the sign of death is plainly 
Hung out on a nation's forehead, try to cheat strong nature vainly ? 
Can a tree be bright with blossom, can its fruit be ripe and glowing, 
When a worm the pith consumeth, when no juice of life is flowing ? 
Even the water round the root, that with such busy care thou pourest, 
Feeds the rot that eats the heart of the frail life that thou restorest. 

When life's thread is broken, never 
Shall the wits of all the wisest bind it with their strong endeavour. 

VIII. 
I will speak it in a figure : like a house with many chambers 
Turkey stands — an old house hoary with the crust of long Decembers. 
Many a prideful year it witnessed, now it knows the hour of sorrow ; 
Tottering reels one wall to-day, and another falls to-morrow. 
Let the hand of man approach it, and, before its ruin bury 
Nobler piles and worthier mansions, with a wise precaution hurry 

Down to cast the crazy dwelling, 
And upraise a safer o'er it, and in beauty more excelling. 

IX. 

Europe, if a work thou seekest where thy toil shall find a blessing, 

For the waste wouldst plant a garden worthy of thy nicest dressing, 

List, and I will tell thee wisely how, being great, thou may'st be greater. 

Near to Turkey is a land, a little land where kindly Nature 

Such a power of brilliant beauty, and each comeliest grace has showered, 

That no tongue can tell the store of that rich grace with which 'twas dowered. 

'Tis a lovely land, concealing 
Virtue, like the magnet's power, to seize the sense and charm the feeling. 



POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 315 

x. 

In this land a people dwelleth, rich in high ancestral glory ; 

Clio names no race more noble in her roll of various story. 

Bound in darkness lay the Earth ; the precious light of knowledge perished ; 

Rule tyrannic, deeply rooted, spread its arms abroad and flourished. 

The forced sweat of all the nations, and their bright blood crimson flowing, 

Sucked a monstrous biform dragon, proud the double ensign showing 

Of the crown to monarchs given, 
And the mitre of the priest who serves the Lord that rules in Heaven. 

XI. 

In the claws of this Chimera torn humanity lay bleeding. 

From the East a wasting fire-flood came, and wildly westward speeding, 

Spread to Earth's remotest corner, death and devastation dealing ; 

But unharmed amid the deluge stood the Hellenic tribe, revealing 

A miraculous virtue stable : by despotic sway surrounded, 

Greece preserved her laws and freedom undisturbed and unconfounded ; 

She serene and independent, 
All the world a march of tyrants, with a train of serfs attendant. 



Strong and self-sustained Greece never to a sacred priestly college 

Sold her right of thought : free-branching flowed the common stream of knowledge. 

Brutish gods she never worshipped, crocodiles and creeping creatures, 

But Apollo and the Muses, gods with bright benignant features. 

Pyramids she never piled, colossal rows of Sphynxes keeping 

"Watch around the solemn Dead, in their cold stone-chambers sleeping ; 

But she raised the glorious temple, 
With its clear sun-fronting rock, and its pillar'd ranges ample. 

XIII. 

In this land the seed of Poesy, by the gods benignly planted, 
Swelled and grew to leafy grandeur. Orpheus here and Linus chanted 
Songs that stirred the rooted forest, stayed the flood, and tamed the lion ; 
Here the stones in rhythmic order rose to please thy lute, Amphion ; 
Here the far career of thought first opened on the wondering nations ; 
Here of every art were laid, of every science, sure foundations ; 

And all subtle searching spirits 
Loved to graft their art with thoughts which all the world from Greece inherits. 



But alas ! a savage storm swept o'er the land, before whose power 
Even their trees uprooted fell, the fair trees of the Grecian bower, 
And the seed of truth was wafted where a cool-brained race, laborious, 
Reaped, from fields which thou hadst sown, an intellectual harvest glorious ; 
And, when feasting on the fragrance of thy fruitful gardens, never 
Dreamt to cast a grateful glance on thee, of these fair gifts the giver. 

Greece their stumbling march assisted, 
But in their conceit no Greece in all the vasty world existed. 



316 POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 



Where the Muse of iEschylus soared on wings of solemn chorus ample, 

Tartar hordes the soil of Hellas with unlettered feet did trample, 

Then when Rigas, mighty martyr, gathered in the inspiration 

Of his war-song all the slender hopes that still sustained his nation. 

On his head the axe descended, lay his laurel crushed and bloody ; 

But from that free song came forth a wondrous blossom bright and ruddy ; 

As from a mother's throes laborious 
Greece was born anew in him, and Freedom rose to life victorious. 

xvi. 
Look upon the sleeping infant, lift, ye wise, your high doxology ! 
Come, diplomatists that finger nations with your cold phrenology, 
Come and touch it ! — a bright future in its noble features shining 
Can ye read, or does that glance outrun your powers of dull divining ? 
Seest thou how upon its healthful cheek the rosy beauty gloweth, 
Even as fair Aurora's beauty, when her fingers red she showeth, 

And prepares the joys which follow, 
When the awakened world shall blush beneath the full blaze of Apollo. 

XVII. 

Yes, my country, thou shalt never cheat the hopes of them that love thee ; 
Glows my heart with heat from thee, whose far-shed radiance shall approve thee 
To the good ; the scoffer's doubts thou shalt dispel with thy appearing. 
Thou shalt be a Titan, glorious through the fields of Heaven careering, 
Thou shalt ride thy car sublime, the bright-maned steeds thy word obeying, 
On the green Earth's face vivific beams of light and heat outraying. 

So ! in rifts, where thou art nighing, 
Opes the blue serene, and all the clouds that darkly lowered are flying ! 

XVIII. 

In thy cradle, my country, when thy baby-life was sleeping, 

In thy veins the unseen virtue of immortal gods was leaping ; 

When the sibilant brood assailed thee, basilisk and amphisbena, 

With thy young arms thou didst crush them, like the strong son of Alcmena. 

When their venomous spires voluminous rolled around thee, thou didst seize them, 

And with sudden grasp resistless like the soft clay thou did squeeze them ; 

And before the infant scathless 
Fell the terrible snake of Asia, fell the snake of Egypt breathless. 



Thou hast fought, and art victorious ; on thy laurels thou repairest 

Now thy strength ; thou needest rest to heal the bleeding wounds thou bearest. 

Sleep like ocean when the windless air no swelling wave is stirring, 

Soft as noon of sultry summer, when no wing of bird is whirring ; 

But like ocean thou shalt waken, when its ruffled evening mirror 

Bristles round the pale sea-farer, with a thousand crests of terror, 

When the scowling rack is drifting, 
And to smite the sheer black cliff his scourge the god of waves is lifting. 



POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 317 

xx. 
Like an old and toothless lion, when its strength is all departed, 
Turkey roars. Up, Greek, and seize Alcides' club, the mighty-hearted ; 
And with steady foot firm planted, and with strong hand overpowering, 
Prostrate lay with deadly blow the savage monster, blood-devouring ; 
Let it fall, and in its fall disgorge the innocent blood it swallowed ! . 
Wrap its shaggy hide around thee, and bring back the great time-hallowed 

Kingdom, which the Caesar glorious, 
When the Cross subdued the nations, planted in the East victorious. 

It were a waste of time to criticise in detail the faults 
of this poem ; but the conception is good ; and, were the 
tone considerably subdued in some parts, the eifect would 
be much increased. In favourable contrast with the high 
rhetorical swell of the Panhellenics, stands the plaintive 
simplicity of the following little poem by Alexander 
Ypsilante, the ill-starred and crude originator of the first 
movement of the Greek revolution in Moldavia. The 
little bird represents, of course, the condition and feel- 
ings of a Greek in Europe without a Greece : — 

The Bird's Lament. 

Poor little bird, 

Fluttering low, 
Weary and lone, 

Where dost thou go ? 
Seekest thou rest, 
Near in thy nest, 

Poor little bird ? 

No nest have I ; 
But I flutter and fly 

To and fro. 
I seek and I find 

No rest to my wing ; 
Bliss is to me 
A forbidden thing, 

Wherever I go. 

I had a country when I was young ; 
And my hope was strong 
As I poured my song 
The white-flowered myrtle trees among, 
When I was young. 
I sat on the tree, 
I sang late and early, 



318 POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 

I had a mate, and I loved her dearly, 
And she loved me. 
Down came a hawk with swift swoop from the sky 
And tore my joy from before mine eye ; 
And spoiled my rest, 
And robbed my nest, 
And left me bare to lie. 
Since then all cheerless and hopeless I roam, 
Without a friend, without a home. 

With weary wing, and wail more weary, 
I wander o'er the world so dreary ; 

With the wind I roam, 

Till I find a home 
Where no wing of the weary is stirred ; 

Where the monarch so proud 

Shall sleep with the crowd, 

And the hawk from the sky 

Shall harmless lie 
With the poor little innocent bird. 

We conclude with a little piece of some historical in- 
terest, written no doubt shortly after the taking of Con- 
stantinople by the Turks in 1453, and which points to 
a political consummation in which no Greek true to 
his blood and to his traditions refuses to indulge. We 
give the translation literal in the present case, with the 
original prefixed, that the student may have before him 
a fair specimen of the average popular Greek of the fif- 
teenth century : — 

Ufjpav ty)V iroXiv 7rfjpdv tv]v, 7rr}pav ttjv *2a\oviKr)v ! 

Urjpav kcu ttjv dytdv "Eoffnav, to fieya fJLovacrT7]pL, 

II' ef^e rpiaKocr la o-^/zavrpa, kou i^-rjvra Svo KafxTrdvats' 

Ka#e Ka/nrdva kou Trcnrnas KaBk Trainras kcu Siokos. 

2t/xa vd ftyovv rot ayia, k' 6 /3acnAeas rov k6o-{mov, 

<f?(i)vr) rovs r}p6' e£ ovpavov, ayyeAcov aV to crrofxa' 

A</)^t' avTrjv Tr)V ^aA/xwStotv va x a l Jir )^ (TOVV T ' <*y ta > 

Kou aretATe Adyov els rrjv (ppayKidv, vol epOovv vd ra iridcrovv, 

Nd irdpovv rov ^pvcrbv crravpov, kcu t aytov evayyeAiov, 

Kat ttjv ayiav rpdire^av vd fxrj rrjv dfJLoXvvovv. 

2dv t aKovcrei r) Aecr7roiva, 8aKpv£ovv rj ei/cdves* 

2co7ra, Kvpia, Secnroiva ! firj K/Vat^s, /jlyj SaKpv^rjS, 

ITaAe fi€ xpovovs, /jl€ KcupovSj TrdXc Slkol crov tTvai. 



POPULAR POETRY OF MODERN GREECE. 319 

LITERAL TRANSLATION. 

They have taken the city — they have taken it — they have taken Thessalonica ! 

They have taken also St. Sophia, the large minster 

Which had three hundred altar-bells, and sixty-two bells in the steeple, 

And to every bell a priest and to every priest a deacon. 

And when the Most Holy went out, and the Lord of the World, 

A voice was wafted from heaven, from the mouth of angels, 

" Leave off your singing of psalms, set down the Most Holy, 

And send word to the land of the Franks, that they may come and take it ; 

That they may take the golden cross, and the holy gospel, 

And the holy table, that the infidels may not pollute it." 

When our Lady heard this her images wept ; 

"Be appeased, Sovran Lady, and do not weep, 

For again, with the years and the seasons, again the minster will be yours." 



If this lyric is destined to be anything more than 
a fine dream, the modern Hellenes, with such a big neigh- 
bour as Russia, and such slippery spectators as England 
and France, will require to learn the elements of a certain 
political wisdom to which they have hitherto been stran- 
: gers ; and, even with that wisdom, it may be as easy for 
the Muscovite, some fine day, to snap up Constantinople, 
as for a big trout to catch a fly. Perhaps, however, 
the patriotic minstrel only meant, that Constantinople 
would one day come back to the possession, not indeed 
of the Greek people, but of the Greek church. If this 
issue be enough to realize the pious prayer, then its fulfil- 
ment is more than likely ; for that the cross will at no 
distant period take the place of the crescent on the dome 
of St. Sophia is one of the safest political prophecies on 
which, in the present state of Europe, a prudent man may 
venture. 



ON THE PLACE AND POWEB OF ACCENT 
IN LANGUAGE. 

On the subject of accent and quantity as elements of 
human speech, there has been such an immense amount of 
confusion, arising from vague phraseology, that in renew- 
ing the discussion nothing seems more necessary than to 
start with a careful and accurate definition of terms, 
and that a definition not taken from books, the dumb 
bearers of a dead tradition, but from the living facts of 
nature, and the permanent qualities belonging to articu- 
lated breath. Now, if we observe accurately the natural 
and necessary affections of words in human discourse, con- 
sidered merely as a succession of compact little wholes of 
articulated breath, without regard to their signification, 
we shall find that all the affections of which they are 
capable amount to four. Either (1), the mass of articu- 
lated breath which we call a word is sent forth in a com- 
paratively small volume, as in the case of a common gun, 
or it is sent forth in large volume, as in the case of a Lan- 
caster gun ; this is a mere affair of bulk, in virtue of which 
alone it is manifest that any word rolled forth from the 
lungs of a Stentor must be a different thing from the 
same mass of sound emitted from a less capacious bellows. 
In common language this difference is marked by the 
words loud and low. A broader wave of air impelled 



ON ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 321 

against the acoustic machinery of the ear will always 
make a more powerful impression independent of any 
other consideration. But (2), an equal or a stronger im- 
pression may be made on the ear by a less volume of 
sound, if it be sent forth with such an amount of concen- 
trated energy and force as to compensate for its deficiency 
in mass. A more sharp and intense clap of thunder, for 
instance, may in this way affect the ear more powerfully 
than a greater peal less vigorously sent forth and more 
widely spread. The affection of sound brought into action 
here is what in language we generally call stress or 
emphasis ; and it depends altogether on the intensity of 
the projectile force, and gives to speech the qualification 
of more or less forcible. But (3), this force may often be, 
and very naturally is, accompanied with another affection 
of sound altogether distinct, viz., the sound may be deep 
and grave, or high and sharp, corresponding to what in 
music we call bass and treble notes. The analogy between 
music and articulate speech is here so striking, that it has 
passed into common use ; as when we talk of a person 
speaking in a high or a low key, in a monotone, or in a 
deep low sepulchral tone, and so forth. And in reference 
to single words, we are accustomed to say, that the acute 
accent stands on syllables pronounced in an elevated tone, 
and the grave on those pronounced with a low tone. The 
only difference between the musical scale and the scale of 
articulate speech in this view is, that the latter, besides 
being much narrower in its compass, rises or sinks, not by 
mathematically calculated intervals, but by a mere upward 
or downward slide, not divided by any definite intervals. 
The true connexion of these slides with the general doc- 
trine of accent has been well set forth by Mr. Walker, 
the author of the Pronouncing Dictionary, in a separate 

x 



• 



322 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

treatise. 1 (4). The fourth affection of articulated sound is 
that which is familiarly known to scholars and schoolboys 
under the name of quantity, and signifies simply the 
greater or less duration of time during which the sound 
continues to impress the ear. For it is manifest that 
any sound may be produced either by a sudden stroke, 
or jerk, or by a traction prolonged to any extent. In 
grammar a short vowel corresponds to a quaver or semi- 
quaver in music, and a long vowel to a crotchet or minim, 
according to the ratio of the movement. 

Now it should seem to be pretty plain at the outset, to 
all persons whose ears have been exercised in a very slight 
degree to discern the differences of articulate sounds, that 
what is called accent in grammar has to do only with the 
second and third of the above four elements, and not at al. 
with the first or fourth ; in other words, that the accent of 
a word is totally distinct both from the volume of voice 
with which the word is enunciated, and the length of time 
during which the speaker dwells on the syllable. Never- 
theless, such is the confusion which learned writers have 
introduced into this subject, that it is necessary at the 
very outset to enter a caveat against a very prevalent 
notion that the placing of the acute accent on a syllable 
naturally or necessarily implies a prolongation of the sounc 
of the accented vowel ; or, in other words, that to accent 
a syllable without making it long is impossible. In music 
no performer ever dreams that the rhythmical beat on th( 
first, we shall say, of three quavers — that is jig time- 
necessarily turns the quaver into a crotchet. A musiciar 
making such an assertion would simply be deemed drunk 



1 A Key to the Classical Pronuncia- Latin Accent and Quantity. By Jokt 
ion of Greek and Latin Proper Names ; Walker. London, 1827. 
with Observations on the Greek and 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 323 

or mad ; nor does it make the slightest difference in the 
quantity of the note receiving the musical accent, whether 
in respect of elevation of tone it stands high or low in the 
scale. It is understood by every girl who fingers the 
piano, that the elevation of the note, the duration of the 
note, and the rhythmical emphasis upon the note, are 
three essentially different things which never interfere 
with one another. But the moment we transfer this case 
to the analogous domain of spoken accent, — the certus 
quidam dicendi cantus, as Cicero called it, — we find our- 
selves involved in a region of confusion and contradiction 
I with regard to the simplest matters, than which few 
things can be imagined more humiliating to human reason. 
) For however divergent the printed opinions of the learned 
| may sound, that the relative facts are exactly the same in 
i the case of spoken speech, as of song or played notes, is 
i beyond question. A single example will make this evi- 
i dent. The first syllable of po'-tent, for instance, accord- 
ing to a well-known rule in the English language, is long; 
, but the first syllable of the Latin word from which the 
.English comes is short, pot' -ens, while the accent is on the 
I same syllable in both languages. Now, it surely will not 
be alleged, in obedience to the dictates of any sane ear, 
that in pronouncing the Latin word I am obliged to call 
it po-tens, after the English fashion, on account of the 
tyrannic force of the acute accent. It seems, neverthe- 
less, that British schoolmasters and professors have acted 
Ainder the notion that some compulsion of this kind exists ; 
for as a rule they say bo'-nus, and not bon'-us, though they 
know very well that the first syllable of this word is not 
long, as in the English word po-tion, but short, as in 
wior-al. Such confusion of ideas on a very simple matter 
is a phenomenon so strange, that some reason may justly 



324 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

be demanded for its existence ; and on reflection I find 
two reasons principally that seem to account for it. The 
first is the confounding of a really long quantity with that 
predominance of a sound to the ear which is a necessary 
element of all accentuation. Thus, when I take the word 
tep'-id, and form the abstract substantive from it — tepid' - 
ity, by changing the place of the accent from the first 
syllable of the adjective to the second, I certainly have 
given a prominence to the short i which it did not possess 
before, and a prominence, no doubt, which though it con- 
sists principally in force, emphasis, or stress, may also 
carry along with it a certain dilatation of the tenuous 
vowel, so that it is really longer in the substantive, being 
accented, than when it was slurred over without emphasis 
in the adjective. But, though this is quite true, it is alto- 
gether false "to say that the vowel has been made long 
according to the comparative value of prosodial quantity ; 
for, if the second syllable of tepid' -ity be compared, not 
with the last syllable of the adjective tepid, but with the 
same syllable of the substantive, as mispronounced by 
some slow, deliberate Scot — tepl'-dity, tepee-dity — we shall 
see that the vowel i, for all rhythmical purposes, still re- 
mains short. The other cause which presents itself to 
explain the confusion of English ears on this subject is 
the doctrine of what the Greek and Roman grammarians 
call length by position. According to this doctrine, 
vowel before two consonants is long. What this means 
we may clearly conceive by the example of such words as 
gold, ghost, in English, or Pabst or Obst in German ; but 
though the vowels in these words are unquestionably long 
in both languages, they are so only exceptionally, the rule 
both in English and German being that a vowel before 
two consonants is short. Of this rule the word short itself 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 325 

may be taken as an excellent example ; which, if it 
occurred in a Greek chorus, by the law of position, would 
be sung short, with the o prolonged, like o in shore. Now, 
with this classical analogy in their ears, or rather in their 
head (for it is by no means certain that all those authors 
who have written on this subject did use their ears), when 
I pronounce such a word as prim! -rose or 81' -bow, it is not 
at all uncommon for English scholars to say, and obsti- 
nately to insist, that the accent on the first syllable of 
these words is necessarily accompanied by a prolongation 
of the vowel. But this is a judgment of the question, not 
by the living fact of the sound, but by the doctrine of an 
old book about the sound. And as to what the old book 
1 says, we in fact do not know whether length by position 
meant a habitual prolongation of the vowel sound in com- 
mon discourse, as in our words gold, told, sold, ghost, most, 
or only a poetical licence ; that is to say, whether the 
genitive plural of avr\p, of which the penult is short, was 
really pronounced awndrone or androne in prose. I for 
one am strongly inclined to think that the latter is the 
true fact of the case ; for, if it had been otherwise, would 
it not have been a more correct phraseology in the gram- 
marian to say that a vowel before two consonants is 
naturally long ? But when they tell us that a vowel 
which is naturally short becomes long when two consonants 
follow, this looks rather like an artificial exception than a 
natural rule. And I am inclined to think that such an 
exceptional rule was introduced from sheer necessity, like 
the long o in certain comparatives, such as aocjxorepos, 
because, without such a licence, really long syllables in 
sufficient abundance would not have been found in the 
language for the necessities of the early dactylico-spondaic 
poetry. As to any inherent natural necessity in the rule, 



326 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

such an idea cannot be entertained for a moment ; for the 
vowel is then most easily prolonged — as in the English 
words po'-tent, no-tion, na'-tion, pa' -tent, where it is kept 
separate in spelling from the influence of the succeeding 
consonant or consonants, which, as in por'-tion, rather act 
by cutting the breath short, and preventing the prolonga- 
tion of the vowel. The influence of the consonant in 
shortening the vowel will be apparent in comparing the 
words nom-inal and Leb'-anon with no-tional and la'-hial; 
nor does the addition of a second consonant in any percep- 
tible way alter the case. If the first syllable in prim is 
manifestly short, it is certainly not made long by the 
addition of the long syllable rose in the noun prim -rose, 
a word which, in the relative values of its final and penult 
syllables, corresponds exactly to a whole host of Greek 
words which usher in a long final by a short accented 
penult, as in nxdrcov, the name of the great philosopher 
of Idealism, in Anglicising which, besides attenuating the 
vowel, we elongate the short penult, according to the 
practice of our own language. 

It will now be distinctly understood, as a starting- 
point to the present inquiry, that by accent I mean 
merely a certain predominance, emphasis, or stress given 
to one syllable of a word above another, in virtue of a 
certain greater intensity of force in the articulated breath ; 
this increased intensity being naturally in many cases, but 
not necessarily in all cases, accompanied by an elevation 
in the key of the voice. My observations do not include 
either rhetorical accent, which affects whole sentences and 
clauses, or national accent, which, in addition to rhetorical 
accent, often includes some favourite sound, note, or vocal 
mannerism characteristic of different peoples. 

The general question to which we shall now attempt a 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 327 

scientific answer is the following — What are the great 
leading principles on which accent, as a phenomenon oi 
articulate speech, depends ? Are there any such principles, 
or is it a matter of mere arbitrary association, fashion, and 
habit ? and, in the comparison of different languages what 
is the standard of value in respect of their accentual cha- 
racter ? Does sesthetical science contain any general rules 
which might enable us to measure the value of accents, as 
we do the value of sounds in language, when, for instance, 
we say that Italian is a more harmonious language than 
Gaelic, and Greek a more euphonious language than Latin ? 
In answering this question I would remark, in the first 
place, that there is no such thing as a language altogether 
without accent ; only a machine cou]d produce a continu- 
ous series of sounds in undistinguished monotonous repe- 
titions like the turn, turn, turn of a drum ; a rational being 
using words for a rational purpose to manifest his thoughts 
and feelings necessarily accents both words and sentences 
in some way or other. When, therefore, we find it stated 
in Adam Smith's Essay on Language, and other English 
writers, that the French have no accent in their words, 
this is either a gross mistake, or it must be understood to 
mean that the French do not give such a decided and 
marked preponderance to one syllable of the word as the 
English do ; which is very true, as any man may see in 
comparing the English velocity with the French velocite. 
But this is merely a difference in the quantity and quality 
of accent, not a contrast betwixt accent and no accent. 
The second postulate of all rational discussion on this sub- 
ject is, that the significant utterance of articulate breath, 
like every other manifestation of reason-moulded sense, is 
a part of sesthetical science, and subject to the same 
necessary laws which determine the excellence of a pic- 



328 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

ture, a poem, or a piece of music. No doubt, in the 
enunciation of words as in all the fine arts, fashion may 
often prevail to such an extent as in some cases to usurp 
the place of reason and propriety ; but the prevalence of 
false taste in any department of art does not affect the 
certainty of the eternal principles by which it is regu- 
lated, any more than the prevalence of murders or lies 
amongst any people can take away from the essential 
superiority of love to hatred, and of truth to falsehood, 
in all societies of reasonable beings. We are therefore 
justly entitled to look for a standard of excellence in the 
matter of orthoepy, no less certain than the standard of 
truth in morals or mathematics ; as, indeed, all things 
in the world being either directly or indirectly the neces- 
sary effluence of the Divine reason, must, in their first 
roots and foundations, be equally rational and equally 
necessary. Now, in looking for the necessary conditions 
on which the comparative excellence of accentual systems 
may depend, we find that they may be reduced to the 
four following heads : — 

1. Significance. 3. Variety. 

2. Euphony. 4. Convenience. 

And first, that Significance must be a main point in 
all accentual systems is manifest from the very nature of 
accent. For why should a man give predominance to 
one syllable in a word more than to another, unless that 
he means to call special attention to the significance of 
that syllable ? Nay, it may often be essential to the 
effect intended to be produced by the word, that its most 
significant syllable should be emphasized, as when Lord 
Derby lately said that the adoption of the Prussian 
system of making every citizen a sol dier would not bea 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 329 

i progression but a retrogression. No doubt, in order to 
express such an accentual contrast as this, the English 
language departs from its usual fashion of accenting these 
words ; but this only proves that the English method of 

: accentuation in this case is a mere fashion, founded on no 

. natural law, and which accordingly must yield to the 
higher law of emphatic significance, when nature, like 

I murder, will out. And here we may observe that the 
English, as a merely derivative and mixed language, is 
by no means a favourable one for exhibiting the natural 
and normal laws of a rational accentuation. Neither, so 
far as I know, is there any language whose orthoepy pre- 
sents so many anomalies, and where changes entirely 

- reasonless and arbitrary require only the stamp of aristo- 
cratic or academic whim to give them currency. With 
regard, however, to the natural preponderance of the 

- contrasting element in compound words, the Saxon part 
of our language affords obvious examples of its recogni- 
tion ; as when we say, out' -side and in' -side, back? -wards 
and for 1 -wards, up-hill and down'-hill, male and female. 
So in the names of the Highland clans, as MacBain, 
MacDonald, MacGrigor, etc., the emphasis does not lie 
on the common element, the Mac, but on the distinctive 
element to which the other is attached ; and in this view 

• our Saxon pronunciation of Macintosh and Mdclntyre 
affords two very good examples of words where custom 
and fashion have inverted the natural and significant 
place of the accent. In the Greek language this most 
natural of all accentual laws operates in all such com- 
pounds as a/capTTO?, airais, avvoSos, irdpohos, with which we 
may contrast the English fruitless, childless, where the 
accent is on the root, and not, where it ought naturally to 
be, on the contrasting element of the compound. In the 



330 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

same category with this I am inclined to place the accent 
on the augment in Greek, as in ervtya, rervfificu ; for it is 
the augment here manifestly that contains the element of 
past time which is distinctive of the tense, being equiva- 
lent in effect — whatever its original meaning may have 
been — to / did strike, as opposed to / am striking. The \ 
same desire to call attention to the distinctive element 
may have determined the Greeks to accent the penult of 
all diminutives, contrary to their usual practice, in words 
with a short final syllable, as in iraihlov, iraihio-icos, k.t.\. 

Under this head I am sorry to record my dissent from 
a German writer of acknowledged excellence on this sub- 
ject— Br. Karl Gottling. 1 This learned writer lays down 
the maxim in the first place, that in the Greek language 
the accent falls on the syllable containing the principal 
idea of the word ; and, accordingly, he says that in Xe^w 
and other verbs not pure it falls on the penult, because 
this syllable is the root, and the root, as containing the 
principal idea of the word, is naturally emphasized. Now, 
looking back to the first framers of a language, I cannot 
see in this case any reason why the root syllable should 
have received the accent rather than the termination, 
which, for the sake of distinction and contrast, is added 
to the root. If we say anapiro^, because we wish to call 
attention to the negative particle, why should we not say 
Xeyco calling attention to the personal pronoun ; as, in fact, 
we do say in English, quoth I', quoth he ? And in the 
same way with regard to nouns, as the terminations of 
the cases were originally expressions of relation, attached 
to the noun for the sake of emphasis and contrast, I do 
not see why the schoolboy fashion of declining dominus- 

1 Elements of Greek Accentuation, from the German. London : Whitaker. 
1831. 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 331 

i-o'-um — should not have been the original one. And so in 
the case of the German brauerEi and the Scotch brewer&E 
as contrasted with the English brewery; for though no 
doubt it may be said that as the root brew contains the 
principal idea, the accent should naturally be there, and 
this is what Gottling says, yet it may with more right 
be said, that what is intended to be emphasized here is 

i not mere brewing, but a place for brewing, and that the 

. syllable denoting the place receives the accent as appro- 
priately as the terminations jpiov, elov, and d>v, when used 

j for the same purpose in Greek. Only so much truth, 
therefore, can I perceive to lie in Gottling's principle, 
as to admit that, so soon as the original signification of 

| terminations is lost, and people commence to supply 
their place by prepositions, pronouns, and other separate 
words, whose significance is felt — then, and not till then, 

b can the accent on the root syllable be regarded as natural 

I and normal in language. Thus, when the German says 
Hdbe, laying the stress on the first syllable of the first 

: person singular present indicative of the verb to have, 
this is natural and normal, because the termination e has 
no significance to him, and could receive an accent only 
from a senseless fashion, not from a natural propriety. 
On the other hand, in Ab'gdbe, Hingdbe, Ziigabe, and 
similar compounds, the accent is properly placed on the 
contrasting element of the compound, of which the signi- 
ficance is strongly felt. 

The next element we have to take into consideration 
in measuring the value of different accentual systems is 
Euphony. The simple mention of this word will suffice 
to show how very one-sided a notion it was in Gottling, 
that the accent, as a general principle, should always be 
on the root syllable, as being the .most significant. If 



332 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

man were only a logical animal, this might be all very 
well as an a priori ideal of a perfect accentual system ; 
but he is also, if not always at starting, certainly when 
fairly developed, an sesthetical animal, which may be 
allowed on occasions to sacrifice the significance of ideas 
to the luxury of sounds. And, if this is true of man gene- 
rally, it is certainly so a fortiori of the Greeks, whose 
whole culture grew out of music, and remained in 
the closest connexion with it to the very end of their 
classical period. Supposing, therefore, that with this 
most musical and artistic of all peoples a regard to the 
mere luxury of sound had, in certain cases, determined 
the position of the accent, let us ask in what way this 
determination would naturally manifest itself? The 
answer is obvious. In richly terminational languages 
such as the Greek, where the terminations are not insig- 
nificant little short vowels or syllables, as in the German 
Gabe, Buche, Briider, etc., but deep, full-rolling, pro- 
longed vowel-syllables, such as wv, ot?, ao, acov, and oio, 
there might exist a very natural tendency to place the 
accent on these syllables, — not, of course, because there 
is any necessary connexion, as some persons say, between 
accenting a syllable and lengthening it, but because when 
a syllable by the presence of a long vowel actually is long, 
the placing of the accent on it is the most certain way 
both to bring out the full length of the vowel, and to 
insure the permanence of the full musical value of the 
syllable, so long as the language lasts. For whatever 
other syllables of a word may from carelessness, or haste, 
or reasonless fashion, be cheated of their natural quantity, 
the accented syllable will always most stoutly maintain 
its rights, even if it be a short syllable, much more if it 
be a long. To illustrate this by a familiar example ; in 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 333 

the famous Homeric line (II. i. 49), in which the twang 
of Apollo's bow is described, 

Beivr) Be tcXayyv yever apyvpeoto fiiolo, 

it is manifest both that the euphony of the line lies 
mainly in the two terminations in oio, though these syl- 
lables are certainly not the significant ones in the verse ; 
and further, that this verse is much more beautiful when 
recited with the rhythmical accent on both the full- 
sounding penults, than when, according to the prose accen- 
tuation, it emphasizes only the oi of the last word. The 
coincidence of the termination with the accent therefore 

. is favourable to music ; and it is favourable also as a bar 
to the injury which time is always ready to inflict on 
final unaccented syllables. Now, with this principle to 
guide us, we shall have no difficulty in seeing the cause 
of one peculiar excellence which the ancient Roman 
critics recognised in the Greek, as contrasted with their 
own tongue, in respect of the accentual system. For, 
as the Romans in no word placed the accent on the 
last syllable, it followed that they could enjoy the rich 
auricular luxury of a grand terminational unison of 
accent and quantity only in the case of words whose 

; terminations are dissyllabic. Thus, they dealt largely 
in final trochees — trochees both by accent and quan- 
tity, in such words as sermonis, penndram, clomino 1 - 
rura, legis, probavit, voluptatem, and so forth, but could 
not say dominos, or Maecenas, or any word accented 
in the same way as in English our engineer, volunteer, 
evade, capsize, demise. On the other hand, the Greek 
terminational accent is pretty equally divided between 
trochaic terminations such as oio, fyCkovai, rv^delo-a, p,v0o$, 
o-wfia, fiaWov, and oxytone endings, such as dya6cov, Xaffwv, 



334 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

Tv<f>6eU, (j)i\€L<;. Of the prevalence of the oxytone accent 
in Greek, especially in large groups of adjectives and 
substantives, not to mention the whole army of pre- 
positions, and certain familiar parts of verbs, any one 
may convince himself by taking a sentence at random 
from a Greek book ; and the effect of this on the music of 
the sentence will be evident to the dullest ear. Some- 
times a whole sentence runs on with a succession of 
accented terminational syllables, a peculiarity which, with- 
out any rhetorical intention, arises naturally from the 
number of oxytone substantives and adjectives, and the 
additional fact that all substantives of the first declen- 
sion, whatever the accent of their termination may be, 
receive a long rolling accent on the last syllable of the 
genitive plural, while all monosyllables of the third de- 
clension, by a law common both to Greek and Sanscrit, 
transfer the accent from the radical syllable to the ter- 
mination in the genitive and dative cases of both numbers. 
Take a passage from Plato's Republic as an example : — 

Otre dyjpevral 7ravres, ot re /u^tcu, 7roAAot fxev ot Trepl tc\ cr^^/tara re 
koX xpwfiaTa, 7roAXofc Se ot irtpl fJLOv<riKrjv, 7roiYjrai re kou tovtiov VTrrjpeTai, 
pa\p(i)8oi\ v7TOKpirai } yop evTa ^ ipyoXafiot, cr/cevwv re 7rai/ToSa7iw Srjpuovpyol, 
twv re aAAwv kou twv 7repl rbv yvvauK€iov Kooyzov, kcu 8yj kou Slolkovwv 
7rA.eioVa)v 8er)cr6/j,e6a. rj ov Sokcc Serjoretv TraiSaycoyQv, TtT^wv, t/ock^wv, 
ko/x/aojt/hojv, Kovpe(av, kcu ca orporroiiov re kcu fiayetpcov ; eVt Sk kcu 
crv/SaiTiov TrpocrSe-qcrofxeOaA 

Greek, therefore, is superior to Latin in this respect, 
just as an instrument with a larger is superior to one 
with a smaller compass of notes. And taking Italian, 
under this point of view, into the comparison, we observe 
that the few oxytone accents which that beautiful lan- 
guage possesses all arise out of Latin words, with an 

1 Rep. ii. 373, B. 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 335 

accented penult, whose last syllable has fallen away ; thus, 
podestd from potestate, amo from amavit, and so forth. 
The same is the case with the French, as in veloeite, 
variete, valeur ; and most of our English oxy tones, 
whether Latin or Greek, are merely curtailed forms of a 
final trochaic accent, as evade, from evddo, volunteer from 
volontie're, proceed from procedo, advert from adverto. 
And it is this systematic curtailment by the way, caused 
by the dropping of the final unaccented vowel both in 
Latin and Saxon words, which has produced that lament- 
able deficiency in trochaic endings which makes our 
rhythmical language so much narrower in compass than 
that of Greek, Latin, German, and Italian. Only for 
short lyrical efforts can we manage the rhymed trochaic 
ending with graceful effect ; all attempts to go beyond 
this natural limit have ended either in a manifest artificial 
strain, or an admixture of the comic element which is 
fatal to the effect of serious composition. 1 

If this rich and various disposition of the accent on 
terminational syllables is thus manifestly a plain element 
of euphony, that accentuation, on the other hand, will be 
justly esteemed cacophonous which, by drawing the accent 
back to the beginning of the word, that is to the third, 
fourth, or even fifth syllable from the end, has a tendency 
to cheat the ultimate or penultimate syllable of its full 
musical value ; we say a tendency, because it is only in 
this tendency that the evil lies ; for, if by careful elocu- 
tion the tendency is corrected, the blot may be turned 
into a beauty on a principle to be mentioned under the 
next head. 

The remark here made is a very serious consideration 

1 This defect is one among half -a- success in our English hexametrical 
dozen reasons for the general want of experiments. 



336 



ON THE PLACE AND POWER 



for us English, as our predominant accent is decidedly 
antepenultimate, and the fashion seems to be increasing 
of throwing hack the accent from the penult to the ante- 
penult, and from the antepenult sometimes to the fourth 
syllable from the end. Thus we used to say contemplate 
and illustrate, whereas we say now contemplate and 
illustrate, disputable has become disputable, and contem- 
plative, of course, must become contemplative. The ten- 
dency of this practice to deprive our syllabification of its 
natural melody is obvious enough. In such words, for 
instance, as signify, and purify, the tendency to rob the 
final y of its natural long quantity is strong, while in 
columbine, brigandlne, from the fuller quality of the final 
syllable, it is less. But, if the danger be great in the case 
of the final syllable of such words, it is greater in the 
case of the penult, that is, the syllable immediately fol- 
lowing the accented antepenult ; for, in the case of the 
final syllable, a secondary accent may come in to save the 
prominence of the vowel, while the long unaccented 
penult lies under the double disadvantage of a sinking 
inflexion and a feeble stress, after the combined force, 
it may be, of an elevated accent and a long quantity. 
From this cause it is that in vulgar speaking the 
second syllable of the verb educate is liable to be 
shortened and turned into ed'icate ; and so strong is this 
tendency, that many English scholars will tell you that 
to pronounce the Greek word avOpcoiros, with the accent 
on the first syllable and the second syllable long, is im- 
possible ; and it is no doubt true that it is not so easy as 
saying avBpoiro^, which the modern Greeks generally do ; 
but as to the alleged impossibility, we have only to look 
to such words as landholder, codlhedver, corn dealer, to see 
that it exists only in the unpractised articulating organs of 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 337 

the objectors. Of all languages that I know, the Gaelic 
is that whose euphony has suffered most from the habit of 
throwing the accent back to the beginning of the word. 
Of this there cannot be a more striking instance than 
words compounded with the element mor, signifying great, 
which may be divided into two classes, those in which 
the termination mor, recognised in its full significance, is 
accented, and those in which it falls under the category 
of the German lich and our y — in glilcklich and lucky — 
being used for flexional purposes without a distinct ap- 
preciation of its meaning, and therefore naturally unac- 
cented. Of the one class of words, Liosmo'r and Ben 
More, i.e., large garden and great mount, may serve as 
familiar examples ; of the other, sultmhor, 'fat,' pronounced 
sultvur, and grasmhor, 'gracious, 1 pronounced grdsvur, are 
excellent illustrations. For in these two last words we 
see that the adjective mor, in losing its separate signifi- 
cance, loses both its quantity and its natural accent ; and 
the compound word becomes a paltry pyrrhic * w 3 instead 
of a respectable iambus, w -, or a majestic spondee, l -. 

Under this head it only remains to mention the extra- 
ordinary theory of Bopp with regard to the place of the 
accent both in Sanscrit and Greek. That illustrious phi- 
lologer, in a work entitled System of Comparative Accen- 
tuation, or Concise Exhibition of the Points of Agreement 
between Greek and Sanscrit in the Doctrine of Accent, 
Berlin, 1854, lays it down as a ruling principle, that the 
most perfect kind of accentuation generally, and that 
which prevailed originally in the Sanscrit language, was 
that in which the acute intonation is placed as nearly as 
possible to the beginning of a word, however long. Into 
the historical proofs of any such system of accentuation 
ever having existed, of course only a profound student of 

Y 



338 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

the Vedas could enter. I am authorized, however, by 
Professor Max Mtiller and Professor Aufrecht to say, that 
the theory of Bopp is universally recognised as baseless ; 
and this is just what might have been expected. The 
mere assertion of such a principle to a man whose ears 
have been trained to a rich and various orthoepy is mon- 
strous. If the accentuation of the first syllable, as in 
the well-known case of the Greek vocatives of the third 
declension, Tldrep, "AttoWov, and such like, may well be 
explained by the eager energy with which the call was 
made, it does not therefore follow either that eager 
energy is the only thing to be looked at in a good 
orthoepy, or that such oxytone words as a<yadr\ and 0eo? 
may not be so enunciated as to carry an intense expres- 
sion of energy to the ear of the hearer. Let this notion 
of Bopp, therefore, stand as only another instance of the 
great blunders to which great wits are subject, and which, 
as large experience teaches, are the natural consolation of 
the dunces. 

That variety is a necessary element of all aesthetic 
presentation of the highest order needs no special proof. 
Variety is both an indication of wealth and a preventive 
of monotony ; and as such is no less a natural source of 
delight to the recipient of aesthetic pleasure than of just 
boast to the producer. 

Alles in der Welt lasst sich ertragen, 
Nur nicht eine Keihe von schonen Tagen, 

says Goethe ; and what the Weimarian sage here says oJ 

beautiful days is equally true of beautiful verses or oi 

beautiful words. Hence arises the sure canon — 

That language is superior in point of accentual effect 

which gives no partial predominance to any one accentual 

place, but gives the rising inflexion free play over all the 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 339 

syllables of a ivord, so far as the range is consistent with a 
full vocalization. Now, when we compare the Greek and 
Latin language by this rule, we find a decided and uni- 
versally admitted superiority in favour of the Greek ; for 
this language admits of the acute on any one of the three 
last syllables, while Latin allows it to fall only on the 
penultimate and the antepenultimate. English, on the 
other hand, in this view, asserts one point of decided 
superiority over both the classical languages ; for words 
so accented as lamentable and heritable, on the fourth 
syllable from the end, are not at all uncommon with us, 
while the Greeks and Romans, who had no such accents, 
fell into the very natural error of thinking that they were 
contrary to nature. But, though with help of this pecu- 
liarity we are able to marshal a much larger army of what 
the ancients called proceleusmatic feet in words than 
either Greeks or Romans, we have gained this small 
advantage at a great risk in point of general weight and 
majesty ; and we may be thankful to the graceful 
pedantry of our classical scholars, who, in retaining the 
penultimate accent of many Latin words, have done 
something to balance our habit of flinging the principal 
accent far back and skipping over the remaining part of 
the word. The next canon deducible from the test of 
variety is, that of any two compared languages, that is 
the more rich and beautiful in respect of accent, in which 
the acute accent is placed not on the long syllable but on 
the short, so that, while the accent gets fair play in one 
syllable, the quantity stands out in another, and thus a 
richer and more various melody is distributed over every 
part of the word. For this reason such words as columbine, 
renegade, are more beautiful than glorious and victorious, 
engine'er and volunteer, because in these last words, 



340 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

whether oxytone or proparoxytone, all the wealth of 
sound is spent upon one syllable, while the others remain 
comparatively weak and ineffective. On the same prin- 
ciple the Greek avOpcoiros is richer than the same word 
accented in the Latin way, avOp&Tros, and , Apiaro<pdvr]<; is 
more beautiful than A ristophanes, if, as the English habit 
has generally been, the final es of the word is pronounced 
short. 

On the fourth principle, by which the comparative 
excellence of accents may be determined, I place very 
little value. No doubt, as languages, like buildings, are 
intended for use, convenience as well as theoretic excellence 
must be consulted ; but, as utilitarian considerations have 
changed many an architect's noble plan for a great build- 
ing into a grand incongruity, so considerations of mere 
convenience have spoiled many a fine language. For 
convenience, really, in a great majority of cases, means 
haste and carelessness, or sloth and laziness, and in all 
such cases proves eventually a hostile and destructive 
force acting against all excellency of organism in articulate 
speech. We shall only say generally, therefore, that it is 
always an imperfection in language when words are so 
accented as to produce a lumbering unwieldy heaviness 
in the march of syllables ; and we may say also that 
accents ought, if possible, to be so placed as to admit of 
suffixes or prefixes being added without changing the 
intonation of the word. In this view, contemplative is a 
more convenient accentuation than contemplative, because 
it admits of a substantive contem plativeness, and an 
adverb contemplatively, being formed from it, without 
the necessity of either advancing the accent or allowing it 
to remain on the fifth syllable from the end of the new 
word, where its influence on the following syllables must. 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 341 

naturally be feeble in proportion to their remoteness from 
the point of vocal energy. 

Of the effect of fashion and whim and caprice, in 
determining the accent of certain words, and even of 
whole classes of words, contrary to every principle 
whether of significance, euphony, or convenience, I say 
nothing, because such arbitrary freaks belong not to the 
domain of scientific knowledge, and are merely noticeable 
as casual aberrations or monstrosities. 

Such are the grand principles of the general doctrine 
of accents, so far as I have been able to discover them. 
It will be observed that they are based on a wide induc- 
tion, and apply to Latin and Greek as well as to Gaelic 
or Italian. It is, however, a point which has been long 
maintained in the learned world, that the Greek accents 
have something altogether peculiar, and not peculiar only, 

f but peculiarly mysterious about them, which prevents 
them from being used along with examples from any 
modern language as illustrations of general propositions 

' about accent. It is against this notion — a notion peculi- 
arly English, and prevalent in high quarters — that I must 
proceed now to make a distinct and deliberate protest ; 
for, till it be removed, it will be impossible to say a single 

I sensible word on the doctrine of accents, from which the 
most interesting language in the world shall not be with- 
drawn as an example. I proceed, therefore, to show, both 
from the nature of the case, and from the most authorita- 

\ tive evidence, that there is not the slightest ground for 
the imagination that accent in the classical languages 
meant anything substantially different from what it means 
in English, or Italian, or modern Greek ; and, as a natural 
sequel to this, I will trace the long course of scholarly 
opinion on the subject, from the doctrine of Erasmus to 



342 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

that of Professor Munro, Mr. Geldart, and other English 
scholars ; and conclude by showing practically, what I 
have proved in the actual work of teaching, how all the 
strange contradictions of this singular controversy can be 
reconciled, and all the imaginary difficulties be made to 
disappear. 

As a foundation for all argument on this subject, we 
may assume — what no well-instructed scholar in the pre- 
sent state of learning will question — that the accentual 
marks now seen in every Greek book were first invented 
by Aristophanes of Byzantium, about 250 B.C., for the 
very same purpose that the marks of emphasis stand in 
our pronouncing dictionaries, viz., to insure a correct 
orthoepy in the reading and recitation of the language. 
The assertion once boldly flung forth by the early 
opponents of Greek accents, that they were properly 
marks of musical intonation, having nothing to do with 
spoken eloquence, can now be hazarded by no philologer. 
Whatever the accents meant, they were intended to 
direct the reading of prose ; had they been anything else 
indeed, it is impossible to understand how they ever 
found their way into the familiar notation of prose. But 
for the sake of those who may not be familiar with the 
evidence on which this point rests, we shall here set 
down the testimonies of two eminent grammarians : first, 
Dionysius Thrax, who lived at Rome about 80 B.C., and 
whose re'xvv vpa/LLfAaTifcr), quoted by Sextus Empiricus (Adv. 
Math., i. 12), has been recently printed in the second 
volume of Bekker's Anecdota (p. 629). This grave 
authority tells us that the art of grammar, as it was then 
practised, consisted of six parts — 

1. dvdyvcDcri,? evrpifir}? Kara irpoa(phlav — assiduous read- 
ing, according to accentuation. 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 343 

2. Explanation of the meaning, according to the signi- 
ficance of the tropes used by the writers. 

3. Explanation of the historical facts and of the glosses 
i or peculiar words. 

4. Etymology. 

5. Consideration of linguistical analogies. 

6. A critical appreciation of the work expounded, in 
- its beauties and defects. 

Now, there can be no doubt here as to what irpoawhla 
means ; for, though the plural of this word sometimes is 
used in a wider sense, as we talk of the Hebrew points, 
so as to include aspirations, pauses, quantities, and every 
affection of which spoken and written words are capable, 
when used in the singular as a special technical term, it 
signifies accent, and nothing else. 

The second grammarian whom I quote is Theodosius, 

] who lived in the time of the Emperor Constantine, and 
whose treatise on grammar was published by Goettling 
in the year 1822. This author, in the chapter (p. 58) 

\ entitled 7rco? XPV avaycyvcoa-Keiv, says that good reading 
consists in three things — 

1. wrofcpLoris, dramatic expression, arising out of a sym- 
pathetic conception of character. 

2. 7rpo(7G)$ia — or reading Kara tou? aKpifSeis rdvovs — 

according to the exact accents — irpoo-whla ydp o roVo? — for 
accent and tone are the same. 

3. Bia<rTo\rj f attention to pauses and punctuation. 
Now, if any person further inquires whether the 

ancients did not read their prose according to quantity 
also, I answer that of this there can be no doubt ; but 
that the prominence in correct reading is naturally given 
to accent, because quantity is the specialty of poetry, 
and unless where we talk specially of poetry, by the 



344 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

word reading we are understood to mean prose. But 
that correct reading of prose included quantity also, 
is evident from what the same grammarian says a 
sentence or two below, viz., that under nrpoawhla, in a 
wider sense we understand both accent and quantity, 
and in this wider sense correct prosodial reading arises 
6K tov TrapatyvXoLTTeiv tov? tovovs /cat tovs xpovovs, from observ- 
ing the tones and the times, and all the other affections of 
articulate speech. Now, as there was an uninterrupted 
succession of grammatical teachers, from the age of the 
Alexandrian Ptolemies to the time of the Roman Em- 
perors, and from the establishment of the Eastern Empire 
by Constantine to the taking of Constantinople by the 
Turks, no historical fact can be more certain than this, 
that the living accentuation with which Greek was 
spoken in the great seats of learning and culture in the 
third century before Christ, and by which a just orthoepy 
in reading was determined, has been handed down to us in 
an unbroken chain of the most authoritative testimony. If 
this is not true, there is nothing now credited in the wide 
sphere of linguistic tradition that rests on a sure basis. 

If, then, the ancient Greeks both spoke and read by 
the rule of those accents which we now see on our printed 
books, what are we to understand by that accent? 
Here the field of definition is happily well narrowed. 
That Greek accent did not mean quantity, every page of 
tradition on the subject distinctly testifies ; that it did 
not mean mere volume of mass of articulate sound is 
equally certain ; and no man, ancient or modern, ever 
dreamt that it did. There remain, therefore, under 
which it may fall to be subsumed, only the other two 
affections of articulate speech with which we started, 
viz., elevation of tone and intensity of utterance. Greek 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 345 

accent must be either the one or the other of these, or 
both together. That it means the first, viz., elevation of 
tone, is plain from the mere terms ofus and fiapvs, sharp 
and heavy, or high and low, by which the two familiar 
accents are designated. It is also distinctly stated by 
both Greek and Roman grammarians that accent implies 
change of tone in the voice, by alternate elevation and 
depression. The phraseology, indeed, of this matter was 
borrowed by the grammarians from the musicians, and 
had reference to the high and low notes in the musical 
scale, these minute speculators having justly observed 
that, as the voice in music rises or falls by a series of 
measured intervals, so in articulate speech it rises and 
falls by a succession of slides, what our great orthoepist 
Walker calls the rising and falling inflexions. Either, 
therefore — the acute accent of the Greeks, which is the 
i accent properly so called — means the rising inflexion of 
the voice on particular syllables of a word, or it means 
this, plus a stress or emphasis on a certain syllable of a 
word, produced by the greater force, or stretch, or ten- 
sion of the voice on that particular syllable. Now that 
it does not mean elevation of the voice merely, but also, 
and at the same time, that greater stretch or tension of 
7 the voice which produces the emphatic syllable of a word, 
will, I think, be evident from the following six considera- 
tions : — 

1. From the natural difficulty of elevating the voice, 
and not at the same time giving an increased emphasis 
to the elevated vowel ; or, may I not say, rather the 
natural impossibility — for, though it is certainly possible 
to give a great emphasis to a syllable, and keep the voice 
at a low key, that is to say, though stress does not 
necessarily imply elevation — it certainly does not seem 



346 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

very natural or very easy to raise the pitch of the voice 
without accompanying that high pitch with a certain 
emphasis. I may, for instance, pronounce the Greek 
word avaroXri, with a stress on the last syllable, and yet 
with the whole pronounced in monotone ; but, if I raise 
my voice on that syllable, it will be difficult for me to 
withhold from the syllable the stress which naturally 
accompanies the act of elevation. 

2. But that Greek accent implies stress as well as 
elevation is manifest from the natural and obvious mean- 
ing of the terms used by the grammarians in describing 
the phenomena of accent. For what does t<i<tl<; mean but 
stretch or tension ? and is it not quite plain that as con- 
trary as light is to darkness, so contrary is iiriTaa^ to 
ave<m, — i.e., intension to remission, strain to slackness 
of sound — the constant phraseology of the grammarians 
with regard to this matter ? The word Kpovo-jxa, also 
signifying beat or strike, which is sometimes used of the 
acute accent, 1 sufficiently indicates its analogy to the 
emphatic note in a musical bar, which certainly does not ! 
signify elevation or depression. 

3. The analogy of the ictus metricus in rhythmical 
composition, suggested by the word Kpova/na, supplies 
another argument to prove tha/t the Greek and Roman 
accent meant stress as well as elevation. For there are j 
some places in the poets where we can observe that a 
word naturally short is made long for no other reason 
tha.t can be seen than that the spoken accent on the 
syllable favoured the poetical license, just in the same 
way that the rhythmical accent sometimes does. Mere 
elevation has no effect on quantity ; but stress or emphasis 

1 Theodosius, Goettling, p. 61 ; KpovaTiKorepa yiyvopivt] f) Ae'^i? o^vverai., 
Schol. Dionys. Thrax. Bekker, ii. p. 690. 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 347 

can easily be so manipulated by the voice as to pass over 
into a long syllable, or, to use the language of the gram- 
marians, eTTLTacrLs niay become etcTaais, intension may spread 
itself out into extension. 

4. That the acute accent meant stress is plain from 
the inherited intonation of the modern Greeks ; for accent 
is one of the most obstinate affections that belong to 
spoken speech ; and no man can hear such words as koXo 
iraiBl, Xkotto, and Tlapvaa-a-o in the mouth of the living 
Greeks without feeling that the dead mark on our books 
has here received its living interpretation ; and, if any 
person objects that the modern Greek not only acutes the 
last syllables of these words, but makes their quantity 
long, this is all in favour of my argument ; for the length 
arose and could arise naturally only from an exaggeration 
of that tension of voice which was the necessary accom- 
paniment of the accent. With regard to the modern 
Greek dialect generally, I would observe that, though the 
place of the accent has been changed in a few classes of 
words, in the great majority of cases it has been retained ; 
and that hi the case of curtailed words, as fids for kfias, 
Triad) for ottlctco, TJrdpi for 6-^rdpwv, TracBl for iraihlov, $ev for 
ov&ev, etc., it is the stress upon the medial accented syllable 
which secured its permanence after the initial or final 
unaccented syllable had dropped off. 

5. But the most incontestable proof that accent means 
emphasis lies in the doctrine of Enclitics ; for in Greek as 
in English there are certain little words, such as the pro- 
nouns or the negative no, which in common cases are 
purposely kept unemphatic, and pronounced so rapidly as 
to appear to lean upon (ey/eXwm), or be taken up by the 
previous or following word ; but the moment that the 
necessity of speech demands these words to become pro- 



348 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

minent, they receive the accent, and become emphatic. 
Thus we say, "give me the book," like datemi in Italian, as 
one word, but "give me the booh" that is, give it to me, 
not to you. Now, there could not be a stronger fact than 
this to prove that Greek accent meant emphasis ; for this 
use of the acute accent to emphasize in particular cases 
otherwise unemphatic words is quite common, as, for 
example, in the case of the negative particle /xa Ala ovk 
eycoye, contrasted with outoj? Xe^et? rj ou, do you say so, or 
do you not ? 

6. Lastly, the analogy of the modern Italian compared 
with the ancient Roman plainly shows us both the obsti- 
nacy of accent as a fact in the life of language, and what 
accent really meant in ancient Home and Greece, as in 
modern Home. For nothing is more certain than that, 
though its special laws were different in the two learned 
languages, accent, as an accident of articulate speech, did 
not mean one thing in Greece and another thing in Home ; 
but the Greek and Latin accent were in their nature and 
operation identical ; so that what is predicated of the 
essence of the one must be considered as predicated of the 
essence of the other. If, therefore, the modern Italian 
accent, in its position and power so evidently identical 
with the old Latin, possesses the element of stress as a 
prominent feature, it is a legitimate conclusion that the 
Greek accent did so too. Altogether, it may be remarked 
as a very extraordinary fact, and indicative of the opera- 
tion of some strange deluding prejudice, that, while the 
most formidable artillery of erudite arguments have been 
brought to bear against pronouncing Greek with Greek 
accents, no learned Latinist has yet written a book to 
prove that Latin ought not to be pronounced with Latin 
accents. When reading Latin we put the stress on the 



OF -ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 349 

accented syllable exactly where Cicero, and Quinctilian, 
and Priscian say it was placed ; but the moment a 
Hellenist gives the natural • predominance to the accents 
which he finds marked on his books, he is immediately told 
that accent does not mean stress, but means something 
that no man can understand or make use of. Whence 
this inconsistency ? 

Having thus proved, by what may surely seem suffi- 
ciently strong arguments, that accents mean nothing in 
Greek which they do not equally mean in English, or 
Latin, or Italian, there remains only to take a bird's-eye 
view of the somewhat remarkable literature of this subject, 
from the revival of letters down to the present hour. 
Such a review will at once be the best justification of the 
principles above set forth, and will place vividly before the 
reader the partial and inadequate points of view from 
which the opposing doctrines have taken their rise. 

Now, in tracing to its fountain-head the stream of 
confusion which this matter exhibits, it is most natural 
that we should, in the first place, turn to Erasmus, both 
because he was the most prominent scholar of European 
reputation in the eventful age to which he belonged, 
and because it is quite certain that before his time no 
learned man ever dreamt or could have dreamt of dis- 
owning the pronunciation of the Greek language, which 
Europe had received as a common legacy from the Con- 
stantinopolitan Greeks. The early scholars, indeed, were 
occupied with matters of far more serious import than the 
exact accentuation and quantification of syllables. They 
read the Greek books for the information they contained : 
Herodotus for history, Strabo for geography, Thucydides 
for political wisdom, Plato for philosophy, Aristotle for 
science. So long as this appetite for the stores of Hel- 



350 ON THE PLAGE AND POWER 

lenic thought and knowledge was the one thing needful, 
no man had either leisure or desire to put curious ques- 
tions to himself with regard to the auricular luxury of 
a just orthoepy. But the time must come when this 
matter also would be examined : Homer and Sophocles 
could not be read in their mother tongue by men who 
used their ears as well as their eyes, without provoking 
questions as to the best method of bringing out the full 
music of that most musical of human languages which it 
was the happy fortune of these great poets to employ. 
If Greek was the language of the gods, there seemed a 
manifest impiety in allowing it to be enunciated by a con- 
fused, degraded, and irrational elocution. And, if such 
questions were to be raised, Erasmus was precisely the 
man, who, from his fine genius, cultivated taste, and broad 
human sympathies, was best fitted to raise them. Accord- 
ingly, in the famous dialogue, De recta Latini, Grcecique 
sermonis pronuntiatione, published at Basle in the year 
1 528, the whole subject is brought under review ; and 
the text of his discourse is in the broadest terms, that 
" nunc tota fere pronuntiatio depravata est tarn apud 
Grwcos, quam apud Latinos;" and this is proved in a 
very exhaustive style in an argument extending to above 
two hundred pages. The powers of the different letters 
are critically discussed, and the relation of accent and 
quantity illustrated both by learned rules and by living 
examples. With regard to the vowel sounds, which is 
the first point handled, he had an easy task to prove that 
the slender sound, the characteristic of the Byzantine 
Greeks, could not have been the original sound of so 
many distinct vowels and diphthongs. Signs of different 
vowels were certainly not made originally to confound 
but to distinguish. The confusion in this case is always 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 351 

} of a later birth. What Erasmus, however, failed in here, 

, and what, from want of materials, he could not but fail 
in, was to show at what period this confusion commenced ; 

I for, as the most polished nations in modern times display 
in their speech abnormal tendencies and depravations of 
all kinds, which are consecrated by usage and fashion, so 
there is no reason why the itacism of the theologians of 
Byzantium should not have been practised by the philo- 
sophers of Alexandria, and even, to a certain extent, by 
the orators of the Periclean and Demosthenic age. How- 
ever, this was not curiously looked into ; and the result 
was that, by this assault of Erasmus, the faith of scholars 
in the orthoepic traditions of the Byzantine elders was 
shaken in all the most learned countries of Europe, and 

[ every nation set up vocalizing Greek according to what 
seemed good in its own eyes. Hence the motley babble- 
ment of Greek which now prevails. The old foundations 
were removed before the ground was opened, or the 
materials ready, to make new ones. And thus it has 

: happened that an orthoepic reform, well intended, and in 
so far conducted on rational principles, has issued in an 
extremely irrational and altogether unsatisfactory result. 
So much for Greek vocalization. With regard to that 
other matter with which we are specially concerned here, 
we do not find, what we might perhaps have expected to 
find, that the great modern innovation of disowning 
Greek accents in reading Greek receives the slightest 
countenance from Erasmus. On the contrary, part of 
the bad pronunciation which it was his object to reform 
was precisely the ignorance or loose observance of the 
proper accents in Greek and Latin, according to the char- 
acteristic laws of each language. He saw also every- 
where amongst careless, tasteless, or ignorant speakers 



352 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

that confusion of things so distinct as accent and quan- 
tity, which from the same causes prevails so largely at I 
the present day. Scholars still tell you that accent and 
quantity annihilate each other, and cannot both be ob- 
served, meaning only, in fact, that for their particular 
ill-tutored and perverted auricular organs, it has become 
difficult, and is perhaps impossible. It certainly is im- 
possible for a sharp, hard Aberdonian to speak with the 
rich silvery mellowness of a high-bred English lady ; but 
the difficulty lies in bad habit, not in Scottish nature. 
On the superinduced habitude which erudite ears have 
so often displayed in not being able to distinguish 
accent from quantity, there is a passage in the Erasmian 
tractate, which we shall be excused for inserting at 
length : — 

" Sunt quidam adeo crassi, ut non distinguant accen- 
tum a quantitate, quum sit longe diversa ratio. Aliud 
est enim acutum, aliud diu tinnire : sicut aliud intendi, 
aliud extendi : quanquam nihil vetat eandem syllabam et 
acutum habere tonum, et productum tempus, velut in vidi, 
et legi prwteritis. At eruditos novi, qui, quum pronun- 
ciarent illud ave^ov /ecu airiyov, mediam syllabam, quoniam 
tonum habet acutum, quantum possent producerent, quum 
sit natura brevis, vel brevissima potius. Et fere qui Grceca 
legunt, accentus observatione confundunt spatium mom, 
sic enunciantes fieveXaos, quasi penultima sit brevis, et 
/jLeveSrj/jLos quasi duce postremo3 sint breves, quemadmodum 
in OeoSatpcxi TrapdfcXrjTos elScoka, alUsque innumeris. Nee ita 
multis contingit sonare Grceca, ut accentuum simul et 
morarum rationem observent, vel in carmine. Loquor 
autem non jam de vulgo, sed de eruditissimis quoque. 
Minus est erroris in Latinis, sed tamen illic quoque tonus 
acutus ac injlexus obscurat co3terarum sonum, ut in vide- 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 353 

bimus, congruit accentus cum quantitate, at in legebamus, 
sola penultima videtur esse producta, quum secunda sit 
ceque longa : in amaverimus sola antepenidtima, quum ea 
sit brevis, secunda producta. LE. Omnino sic obtinuit 
usus, quern dediscere difficillimum est. UR. Atqui qui 
degustarunt musicam, nidlo negotio distinguunt inter Ion- 
gam, brevem, et inter acutam et gravem. Nihil enim est 
aliud pronunciatio, qudm modulatio quondam vocumnume- 
rosa. Est enim et in oratione soluta pedum ratio, licet 
non perinde certis astricta legibus ut in carmine : quo3 si 
confundatur, non magis erit oratio qudm cantio in qua 
graves cum acutis, longw cum brevibus temere confun- 
duntur. JJnde quidam priscorum grammaticorum non 
inseite dixerunt, accentum esse animam dictionis. Et 
tamen hodie talis est etiam eruditorum pronunciatio, qualis 
\esset ilia ridicula cantio. Scis opinor canere cithara. 
LE. Vtcunque. UR. Nonne frequenter imam chordam 
pidsans producis sonos, et summam tangens brevibus in- 
sonas out contra? LE. Frequenter, quanquam hoc dis- 
crimen evidentius est in jlatili musica. UR. Unde igitur 
nos sumus usque adeo cl/jlovctol, ut omnes acutas syllabas 
sonemus productiore mora, graves omnes corripiamus f 
Vel ab asinis licebat hoc discrimen discere, qui rudentes 
corripiunt acutam vocem, imam producunt. LE. Idem 
propemodum facit cuculus. " 

The only other interesting point, with regard to the 
present matter, which requires to be mentioned here, is 
that Erasmus distinctly teaches that verses, both in Greek 
2nd Latin, are to be read with an accurate observance 
both of accent and quantity. The difficulty and alleged 
bnpossibility of doing this, so much spoken of by modern 
scholars, he supposes to arise only from the gross neglect 
}f the art of elegant reading in modern education. How 

z 



354 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

far he is right in applying the spoken accent thus sweep- ! 
ingly to the rhythmical recitation of poetry, we shall 
have occasion to consider afterwards. 

But what to the fine genius and well-trained ear of 
Erasmus presented no difficulty, to the gross majority 
who take everything without discrimination in broad 
masses was so formidable, that they do not even seem to 
have had the courage to look the difficulty in the face, 
but quietly settled down into a habit of confounding 
accent and quantity, and making all accented syllables 
long. This is distinctly mentioned by the next champion 
in the field, Adolph von Meetkerche (vulgarly Mekirch) 
a Flemish nobleman, born at Bruges in the very yeai 
when Erasmus's book was published, and well known in 
high circles in England, from his having lived and diec 
at London as an attache of the Belgian ambassador at tht 
court of Elizabeth. He was, besides an able diplomatist 
an accomplished scholar, and in the year 1576 publishec 
a Discourse " de verd et recta pronuntiatione linguc 
Greece" 1 which seems to have given the first impulse t< 
the paradoxical movement which caused the Greek accen 
tuation. so laboriously preserved by the Alexandrian gram 
marians, to be thrown overboard in the general practice 
of scholars, and the vulgar Latin accentuation substi 
tuted in its place. The principal part of this work i 
occupied with the question which then loomed most large 
whether the Byzantine vocalization should be retained, oji 
a reformed one introduced, as suggested by Erasmus 
but, in a short appendix, the doctrine of accents is state* 
succinctly, and, what is more important, the author j 
practice with regard to their observance. In the firsi; 
place, he tells us the important fact that, in his daj 

1 Reprinted in Havercamp's Sylloge, vol. i. p. 9. Lugd. Bat., 1836. 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 355 

| Greek was so read by many, confounding accent and 
quantity, as altogether to destroy the perception of any 
poetical rhythm. " Manifestus est eorum error qui tonos 
cum temporibus confundunt, ita ut qucecunque acuenda vel 
fiectenda est syllaba, earn producant : qucecunque depri- 
menda vel cequabiliter pronuncianda, earn corripiant. Ex 
quo Jit ut in Grcecd oratione vel nidlum vel potius corrup- 
tion numerum intelligcts, dum multce breves producuntur, 
et contra plurimce longce corripiuntur ; ut pcene prcestiterit 
Grceca vel Latina non legere quam ita /cede depravare" 
(p. 175). And no wonder, if, as he says, the accent 
was allowed such a power that, in the second line of the 
Iliad, edrjicev was read as a dactyle, and the two final syl- 
lables of ov\ofievr]v as a spondee. And then he tells us of 
a general practice of schoolmasters, which by the way 
prevails in England almost vmiversally to the present 
hour : " Solent enim pcedagogi vulgo ita suos erudire ut 
in omnibus dissyllabis penultimam producant." Just as 
in Eton and Harrow the boys were, till very recently, if 
indeed they are not still, taught or carelessly allowed to 
3ay, bonus, and not bonus. He then goes on to show 
aow this practical assumption that a penultimate accent 
mist necessarily lengthen the vowel has no foundation 
n the real nature of accent and quantity, of which the 
one expresses the quality of the sound, the other the 
limensions. And then, anticipating an objection often 
nade in modern times, he goes on to say, " Neque tamen 
lego brevi syllabce temporis aliquid accedere, quando 
icuto signo signatur, quantum scilicet necesse est in 
tcuendd syllaba consumi; sed } ut mimes sit brevis quam 
tntea, minime tamen consequitur habendam esse pro 
ongd, sicut ah Us habetur qui malus arbor em a malo 
idjectivo non distinguunt" (p. 178). This is exactly what 



356 ON THE PLAGE AND POWER 

Erasmus had said ; and one should think it would be 
sufficiently patent to all ears, except those of stupid 
schoolmasters, careless schoolboys, and bookish scholars, 
whose learning is all in their eyes, and not in their ears. 
But things easy in speculative thought become in the 
hasty practice of life sometimes tolerably difficult ; and, 
in fact, a just and true pronunciation, even in the case of 
the mother tongue, is not attainable without a certain 
amount of trouble. Meetkerche accordingly finds that 
his argument for accents, however just, is liable to be 
met with the objection which nullified so many of Solon's 
well-conceived legislative reforms. The laws were no 
doubt very good, but they were too good for the people. 
The best for them was not the best absolutely, but the 
best which they could endure. "At enim," he continues, 
" dices, ista {i.e. the right pronunciation both of quantity 
and accent) esse perdifficilia, et fortassis etiam ahvvara, 
Us quidem qui diversce pronuntiationi assueverunt. Id 
ego vero fateor, et in me ipso non invitus agnosco. Sed 
nihil vetat rectam viam aliis ostendere, etiam ut Mam 
ingredi non possis. Certe Veritas mihi dissimulanda non 
fuit, ut paullatim meliora probare et sequi condiscamas. 
Ergo, ut libere dicam quod sentio, vel tonos prorsus subla- 
tos esse velim, tantisper dum depravata ilia pronunciatio 
tonorum pro temporibus emendetur (quum prcesentim 
veteres constet istos apices in scribendo non usurpasse) 
vel nullam eorum rationem haberi; ,n which simply means 
that he is in favour of suspending the operation of Greek 
accents till such time as schoolmasters — proverbially not a 
very teachable race — shall have learned to distinguish 6s, 
a bone, from os, a mouth, and that cdn'b is a possible com- 
bination of articulate sounds, as much as caw' no or cae'no. 

1 Havercamp's Sylloge, vol. i. p. 179. 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 357 

The next important work which falls to be noticed 
indicates plainly by its title — " De Poematum cantu et 
viribus Rhythmi ;" Ox on. 1673 — from what quarter the 
attacks of a section of the learned world were now to be 
directed against the traditional sway of Greek accents. 
The author of this tract was the celebrated Isaac Vossius, 
"unquestionably," to use the words of Markland, "a very 
learned man, but whose whimsicalness and love of para- 
dox scarce leaves room for him to be considered a reason- 
able one." 1 Vossius, like Meetkerche, had got his ear 
possessed with a genuine living appreciation of the beauty 
of measure and rhythm in poetry, which justly resented 
; the barbarism of those scholars who read ancient verse by 
, accents, just as if it was so much German or English 
verse. In expressing his indignation strongly against 
| these systematic murderers of the regal majesty of Latin, 
7 and the luxuriant swell of Greek verse, Voss did well ; 
but, when he went further, and not content with the 
interim act of suspension passed by Meetkerche, stood up 
in violent revolt against the whole accredited system of 
accentuation in the Greek language, and cast it, to save 
the ship, like a Jonah, overboard, he committed a great 
mistake, and kicked vehemently against the pricks, where 
• he could only wound his own legs. He declared roundly 
that the whole system of Greek accents, as we now have 
them, was a modern invention, or at least a corruption, or 
a monstrous compound of both ; that accents were origi- 
nally musical marks, and had nothing to do with the 
pronunciation of the language ; that the best proof of this 
was the unrhythmical jar which they produced, when 
actually applied to the recitation of verse, whether Greek 

1 Letter to Foster in the Essay on Accent and Quantity. 3d edit. London, 
1S20. P. 207. 



358 ON THE PLAGE AND POWER 

or Latin ; and that therefore the only course left to the 
scholar of taste was to disregard them altogether, and 
use only such accent as was manifestly dictated by the 
march of the metre. While, however, this ingenious 
scholar found it comparatively easy work to pronounce 
a dictatorial sentence of eternal exclusion against Greek 
accents, of which few had any real knowledge, he found 
himself obstinately met by an obvious objection from the 
familiar practice of the Latin tongue, which, while it dis- 
tinctly disowns (except in a very few exceptive cases) all 
oxytone accentuation, nevertheless, in verse, constantly 
uses an emphasis, which falls with marked effect on the 
last syllable of one or more words in the verse. In 
answering this objection, Voss fell upon an aspect of the 
case, which, if he had applied it to Greek poetry, might 
have saved him from the trouble of beating vainly against 
the strong bulwarks of Alexandrian and Roman and 
Byzantine tradition in the matter ; for he distinctly says 
that singing is one thing and reading another, and that 
the Romans may have followed a different law of accen- 
tuation with regard to each. " Quare non quidem multum 
refragabor, si quis in recitatione Latinorum poematum 
ultimas syllabas unquam productas fuisse negaverit : sed 
vero in Cantu id ipsum fieri potuisse si quis contendat, 
idem etiam merito qffirmet et Latinos canere nescivisse." 1 
Close upon the traces of Vossius comes a German, 
Henry Christian Hennin, whose work entitled " * ' EXkrivia/ws 
o/)%8o?, Traject. ad Rhenum, 1684/' with a great flourish 
of trumpets on its title-page, proclaims itself to prove 
" Grcecam linguam secundum accentus, ut vulgo ab omni- 
bus hucusque fieri consuerit, pronunciandam non esse." 

1 De viribus rhythmi, p. 44. N.B.— By productas in this passage he evidently 
means accented. 






OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 359 

The inspiration of this book — for it is full of fervour and 
emphasis, and a sort of lofty protestation — manifestly is 
the same as that of Yoss's treatise ; a certain school of 
scholars with whom the writer had been familiar, or it 
may be all the scholars of his time and place had got into 
a habit of sacrificing the rhythmical recitation of Greek 
poetry to the traditional accentuation of Greek prose, a 
usurpation, no doubt, of a most gross kind, and which it 
was obvious to think could best be got rid of by not only 
dethroning the usurper and telling him to keep to his 
proper place, but by killing him outright, and casting him 
down among the dead men with a triple volley of curse 
and execration. It was a procedure akin to that in 
political history, when democracy dethrones despotism, 
and acts ten times more despotically than the tyrant 
, whom it overthrew. In conducting his indictment against 
the accents, the author commits in the outset the very 
transparent blunder of confounding the marks of the 
accents in printed books with the living accents in the 
mouth of the people who spoke the Greek language. 
These marks, whether present or absent in books, do not 
in the slightest degree affect the question ; they do not 
exist in English books, and yet English words have a 
well-known accent in the voice of the English people, and 
made visible artificially to their eye in the pronouncing 
dictionaries of Walker and other orthoepists. The next 
great error made by Hennin lies in the theory — for it is 
a mere baseless theory — that the accents were invented 
by Aristophanes of Byzantium for some purpose quite 
different from that which they now subserve. This is 
simply to leap over the testimonies of the most learned 
Greek grammarians from the time of the Alexandrian 
scholars to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. 



360 ON THE PLAGE AND POWER 

And in order to make such a hypothesis possible and 
even plausible, he draws a naming picture of the barbarism 
which corrupted the Greek language at a fever pace 
from the Roman to the Turkish conquest. All this, 
however, is purely imaginary, as any person who has 
looked even superficially into Byzantine literature must 
confess. Whatever changes in the course of time natur- 
ally might take place in the spoken language of the 
Greeks, the last element that would be touched by the 
change was the accentuation ; and that not only from its 
own natural obstinacy, but from the very fact that the 
proper place of the accent visible in most written books 
presented a stereotyped norm, that checked all arbitrary 
deflexion in the start. Any other arguments that make 
a parade in Hennin s book are based on the fact of which 
we hear so much in these days, that certain persons 
could not pronounce avOpwiros without saying avOpoiros, 
and certain other persons imagined that it was impossible 
to do so. After overleaping heroically the bristling fence 
of historic testimony on the matter, the author proceeds 
to lay down four rules of accentuation, which, both in the 
Greek and Latin languages, are, "sine ulld exceptione 
ceternce veritatis." These rules are as follows : — 

(i.) " Omnis vox monosyllaba modulationem habet in 
sua vocali ut 0<y?, wD?, mons, pons." 

(n.) " Omnis vox dissylldba modulationem habet in 
syllabd priori, ut \oyoi, oBol, <j)covv" 

(in.) " Omnis vox polysyllaba penultimam longam 
modulatur, ut avOpwiro^, tvittw^v, Grcecorum, juciinda, 
Romanorum." 

(iv.) " Omnis vox polysyllaba, penultima brevi, modu- 
latur antepenultimam, ut dominos, akoyov." 

This is certainly one of the most cool pieces of inso- 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 361 

lent one-sided dogmatism that the history of learning 
presents, the whole affair being simply an assertion that 
the particular method of accentuation in the Latin lan- 
guage, which the author had inherited from secular and 
ecclesiastical Borne, should be stilted up into an eternal 
norm of accentuation for all languages, while the most 
plain and obvious facts, both in ancient Greek and modern 
English, which contradict the theory are held as non- 
existent, and excluded from the calculation ; an instruc- 
tive example of the truth of Goethe's remark, that truth 
is often disagreeable to us, because it limits the despotic 
sweep of our one idea, while error is grateful for this, 
above all other reasons, because it prostrates fact and 
thought and history before the triumphant march of our 
infallible conceit. 

It was not to be supposed that the sweeping dicta- 
torial dogmatism of this book of Hennin, backed as it sub- 
stantially was by the high authority of Voss, would pass 
without comment from the learned of the Continent; and 
: accordingly we find that in the year 1686 it received a 
long and able reply from John Rudolph Wetstein, pro- 
fessor of Greek in the university of Basle. Wetstein's 
book, by an overwhelming array of historical testimony, 
enforced by sound argument, demonstrates the utter 
untenableness of the proposition of his adversary, unwar- 
rantable equally in the wholesale swamping of the Greek 
by the Latin accent, and in the elevation of this latter 
into a rational norm of accentuation, by which the excel- 
lence of all articulate speech is to be measured. With 
regard to the main difficulty which had staggered Meet- 
kerche, the Basle professor quietly reminds his antagonist, 
in the words of Quinctilian, that the recitation of verse is 
in many respects different from the speaking of prose, 



362 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

" imprimis lectio virilis et cum suavitate quddam gravis 
et non quidem prosce similis, quia carmen est." 

The infection of this notable dispute now comes tc 
England, and the first oracle to whom we feel inclined tc 
propound the question for solution is, of course, the great 
Bentley. This massive and masculine scholar, in the short 
treatise on metres prefixed to his edition of Terence, has 
the following passage : — " Turn vero id Latinis comicis. 
qui fabulas suas populo placere cuperent magnopen 
cavendum erat ne contra linguce genium ictus seu accentut 
in quoque versu syllabas verborum ultimas occuparent 
Id in omni metro, quoad licuit, observabatur ; ut in his 

' Ar'ma virumque cano, Trojae qui primus ab 6ris, 
Italiam fato pr6fugus, Lavinia venit 
Litora ; multum ille et t6rris jactatus et alto 
Vi siiperum, sa6vae memorem Junonis ob iram.' 

Qui perite et modulate hos versus leget sic eos, ut hie 
accentus notantur, pronuntiabit, non ut pueri in scholis. 
ad singulorum pedum initia ; 

" Italiam fato profugus, Lavinaque venit, sed ad rhyth- 
mum totius versus" 

Now, it in nowise concerns us to discuss the value oi 
the remark here made as to the practice of the Latin 
poets ; that is a delicate matter, we believe, not so easily 
settled as the stout Cantab, seems to have imagined. The 
only significance of the passage for our present inquiry is, 
that the writer believed that in some way or other the 
structure of Latin verse was regulated by a regard to the 
spoken accent, and not simply by the law of quantity and 
the metrical beat. What truth there may be in this notion 
will appear in the sequel ; meanwhile it is quite plain that 
it leaves the matter in a state of considerable uncertainty, 
an uncertainty which is not at all diminished by the unques- 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 363 

donably rash assertion in the letter to Mill, that Greek 
iccents were an invention of later times, which could only 
nislead the accurate scholar. 1 An obiter dictum of this 
and, even from a Bentley, on a confessedly difficult ques- 
ion, cannot be regarded as having any real weight. It 
nay, however, along with other causes, have contributed 
,o produce that strange aversion to Greek accentuation 
.0 characteristic of English scholarship. 

We now advance by a long stride into the middle of 
he great battle of accent and quantity that was fought 
n this country about the middle of the last century. The 
)rotagonist of this warfare is the Eev. Henry Gaily, a 
Kentish Doctor of Divinity, and chaplain to His Majesty 
ling George n. His dissertation against Greek accents 
vas first published in the year 1754, seventy years after 
he famous works of Henninius and Wetstein ; and quite 
ecently on the back of two treatises on the same subject, 
vhich had appeared in Rome. 2 Dr. Gaily wrote, quite 
ware of the achievements of his predecessors, but con- 
zinced that their attempts to untie the Gordian knot 
vere unsatisfactory, and that his own method was alto- 
gether new and original ; and so it is, no doubt, in some 
kings, but novel only in the daringness of its assertions 
and the glaringness of its absurdity. Its absurdity con- 
sists mainly in the writer's belief that he can overturn 
he whole principles and practice of the Greek accentua- 
tion, by simply saying that it is irrational and absurd, as 
f some famous philosopher, some thousand years after 
his, when the English orthoepy may have become a field 

1 " Xotse accentuum quorum omnis Atticorum pronunciatione. Eomae, 
lodierna ratio praepostera est atque 1750. (2.) Velaste dissertatio de lite- 
•erversa." Works by Dyce, vol. ii. rarum Greecarum pronunciatione. 
». 362. Eomae, 1751. 

2 (1.) Sarpedonii dissertatio de vera 



,1' 



364 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

for learned debate, were to say that Macintosh and 
Mac'lntyre could not have been pronounced with the 
accent on the first syllable, because it is irrational to place 
the accent on the common element of the Mae, instead of 
on the distinguishing element, the clan; which rational 
method of pronunciation, as above remarked, exists not 
only in all the other Macs, but in all the Saxon names 
ending in son, as An'derson, Peterson, not Anderson, 
Peterson. A writer belonging to a people whose pronun- 
ciation is in all points so various, so arbitrary, and so 
dependent on fashionable caprice as the English, might 
surely have spared himself the inconsistency of such an 
argument. In the other parts of this learned divine's 
book we find merely a repetition of what had been said 
by Meetkerche, Henninius, Yossius, and others. Accents, 
we are told, were altogether musical, and had nothing to do 
with the intonation of colloquial speech : then it is broadly 
asserted that accent necessarily constitutes quantity, and 
therefore must be wrong ; and that, whatever the advo- 
cates of accents might preach in theory, in practice they 
never did, because they never could observe the accent 
without destroying the quantity. This practical difficulty 
is, in fact, the gist of his whole treatise, as is manifest 
from the very notable words with which he concludes : — 
" If, therefore, we would observe uniformity, and keep to 
what we can safely rely on, we must not admit of any use 
of accents in the pronunciation of the ancient Greek lan- 
guage but what is consistent with quantity ; and if we 
have lost the nicer part of the ancient pronunciation, we 
have the more reason to adhere to the essential part 
which still subsisteth." And this way of putting the case, 
viewed as an argumentum ad hominem addressed to the 
great mass of the English scholars and teachers, is no 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 365 

doubt perfectly just ; for these gentlemen had got into a 
monstrous and irrational habit of writing Latin and Greek 
verses with much labour and wonderful dexterity, by help 
of their understanding only, against the verdict of their 
ears, and treated both accent and quantity as an affair of 
dead rules, not of living vital action. 1 

But English scholarship — whatever might be the 
absurdities of professional pedagogy — was not destined to 
surrender one of the strongholds of venerable philological 
tradition at the trumpet-blast of such a windy dogmatist 
as Dr. Gaily. In the year 1767 a reply to his preten- 
tious heresy was sent forth from Eton, by Foster, in 
which, so far as the learning of the subject is concerned, 
he showed himself as superior to Gaily as Wetstein was 
to Henninius. He proved beyond all possibility of denial 
that accent had always been a recognised element in 
Greek orthoepy, and was in no sense the barbarous crea- 
tion of a decadent age and a degraded taste. He stated 
also most distinctly that, while elevation of tone was the 
most characteristic element in Greek accent, it also 
necessarily included the element of stress — which Dr. 
Gaily also saw clearly — but that this stress or emphasis 
was in no case to be confounded with the length or dura- 
tion of syllables. Hence, indeed, the great superiority of 
his argument to that of the Kentish D.D. ; for he not 
only maintained that accent was not to be confounded 
with quantity, but that, from the very nature of the case, 
the intense energy of the acute accent might, in many 
cases, have a' tendency to shorten rather than to prolong 
the emission of breath by which it was enunciated. 2 

1 On this notable inconsistency of 2 On this point he produces a remark- 

those champions of quantity who de- able passage from Suidas, in voce 6^v y 

nounce accent, Mr. Foster is justly vol. ii. p. 1136. Bernhardy. 
severe ; ch. x., on accent-quantity. 



366 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

With regard to the main difficulty, however — the practice 
of the theory, which, as we have seen, was the stumbling- 
block of Dr. Gaily — he does not seem to advance the 
matter far. Hear his words : — 

" Nor let it be said, if we should retain these sounds, 
we can never apply them to their proper use in practice. 
Who can affirm that with certainty ? An English voice 
was capable of doing this in the time of Henry viii., and 
why not now ? Sir John Cheke declares it not only 
practicable, but that it was actually practised, and that 
he knew many persons who could express these sounds 
consistently with accent and quantity perfectly well. I 
know one person who, after a few trials, is now able to do 
the same." By this one person the reader will naturally 
suppose that he means himself, though it is a pity he did 
not say so in a manner that could not admit of ambiguity. 
But whoever the individual might be who in the year of 
grace 1761 had solved this easy vocal problem, curiously 
imagined to be so difficult, schoolmasters who sinned 
against this high ideal of classical recitation might well 
reply, that to attempt to indoctrinate the ears of school- 
boys with such delicate distinctions would prove as hope- 
less as to bring out the beautiful harmony of one of 
Handel's operas from a hurdy-gurdy. On another point 
also, Foster's Essay, though victorious against Gaily, did 
perhaps more harm than good to the question of orthoepic 
reform in the great schools. He does not always suffi- 
ciently distinguish between the emphasis, or stress, or 
intensity of utterance, which he rightly considers to be- 
long essentially to accent, and the prolongation of sound 
with which that intensity may sometimes be accompanied. 
Hence he speaks of the effect of the accent in English 
being habitually to lengthen the syllable ; whereas, if we 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. -' 3G7 

attend to our ears, words like vapid and rapid are just 
as common in our language as potent and pa! tent, and no 
person feels himself under any tendency or compulsion to 
assimilate the pronunciation of the first two words to that 
of the other pair. 

Three years after the appearance of Mr. Foster's 
Essay, the Accentus Redivivus of Primatt appeared, 
the title of which seems sufficiently to indicate that in 
England at least Meetkerche, and Voss, and Gaily had 
practically won the day, and that accents had retired 
from the schools, and even from the typographic theatre 
in Oxford ; for in the year 1759 an edition of Aristotle's 
Rhetoric, without accentual marks, had appeared under 
the imprimatur of Thomas Randolph, Yice-Chancellor of 
the University. How many more Greek books, in the 
same nude fashion, may have issued from the same quar- 
ter about the same time, I do not know ; but there was 
certainly just cause for the champions of accents to take 
the alarm ; and so Mr. Primatt marched forth, an accen- 
tual cataphract, bristling all over with Alexandrian and 
Byzantine erudition, through which it was impossible to 
pierce him. In his learned work he first shakes himself 
free from the notion flung out by Yossius, and the ex- 
treme men of the rhythmical party, that accents, however 
they might have been observed afterwards, were originally 
a musical, and not an orthoepic notation. He then shows, 
by a long historical deduction, that the reading of Greek 
prose always was accentual, and that nothing can be more 
illegitimate than to transfer to prose the laws of quanti- 
tative rhythm, which belong to poetry. But in this 
second proposition, unfortunately, he is only half right, 
and entangles himself and the whole subject in a network 
of the most hopeless confusion ; for, in defining accent, 



368 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

besides asserting with Foster that there is an overbear- 
ing tendency in English to lengthen all accented syllables, 
and an invariable rule in Latin to accentuate long penults, 
he lays it down in the strongest terms that the acute 
accent necessarily lengthens the syllable on which it falls, 
and that, in fact, when properly read, every accented 
syllable in Greek prose is long. Nay, more, so confused 
are his ideas on the whole terminology of the subject 
which he treats, that he actually tells us "we can hardly 
read a verse in Virgil or Homer in which the rhythm does 
not more than once break in upon the quantity " (p. 157), 
a sentence which, according to the usage of all who write 
intelligibly on such subjects, is pure nonsense, or true 
only of such accented verse as we have in English and 
other modern languages. This extraordinary confusion 
of two things by the ancient grammarians, kept so dis- 
tinct as accent and quantity, rendered his whole discourse 
nugatory. To accept accent according to this theory was 
to make a formal transference of quantity from one syllable 
to another, and to acquire a habit of reading prose, which, 
in the point of quantity, would require to be reversed the 
moment a scholar threw down Plato, and took up 
Sophocles. In a country where the most elegant scholars, 
under tl^e guidance of such a Titan as Bentley, had 
already begun to look with a curious preference on every 
thing connected with metrical composition, such a start- 
ling doctrine could not be expected to make converts. 

After these violent but practically ineffective efforts, 
the great strife about accents in England ceased for 
thirty years, when in the year 1796 another remarkable 
combatant entered the lists in the person of Samuel 
Horsley, one of the most notable of the singular army of 
erudite polemical bishops of which the Anglican Church 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 369 

has been so fertile. 1 Into the weakness and utter unten- 
ableness of the received method of reading Greek in this 
country the Bishop casts a piercing eye, and with an out- 
spoken emphasis calls black black, and white white in 
the matter, after a fashion to which it might have been 
expected that in a country where the Church has so much 
to say in the school, some serious attention might have 
been given. " A practice" he says, " is adopted in this 
country of reading Greek verse with the Latin accent , and 
this is most absurdly called reading by quantity ; and hav- 
ing adopted this strange practice of reading one language 
by the rules of another, it is not unnatural that we should 
wish to prove the practice right " (pp. 26, 27). This is 
indeed hitting the nail on the head ; but the strange 
practice, like many strange things in England, still con- 
tinues, and we still make ourselves ridiculous by awkward 
endeavours to prove that what is altogether unnatural 
and monstrous is justifiable and even beautiful. How is 
this ? Not only, I believe, because the patient was self- 
willed and obstinate, but because the physician who pro- 
nounced a most scientific diagnosis of the disease had not 
the sagacity to discover the proper cure. He suggested 
a cure more flattering to his own ingenuity than true to 
the state of the case, or beneficial to the patient. He 
was as original as Dr. Gaily, in a more subtle, indeed, but 
not in a more practical way. Gally's originality, as we 
have seen, consisted simply in calling everything on the 
doctrine of Greek accents irrational and absurd which was 
contrary to his orthoepic habits or fancies, and nonsuiting 
it, without more ado, as a defaulter in foro rationis. 
Horsley, with that respect for historical fact and erudite 

1 On the Prosodies of the Greek and author's name was not given on the 
Latin Languages. London, 1796. The title-page. 

2 A 



370 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

testimony which became a bishop and a theologian, ad- 
mitted the doctrine of accent in its full weight, as an 
element of which no sane reasoner on the matter of 
Hellenic orthoepy could get rid ; but, in order to explain 
its operation as part of the harmony of Greek verse, he 
invented a theory altogether novel and altogether arbi- 
trary, which nobody had ever proposed before, and which 
nobody, we may feel pretty certain, will ever propose 
again. This theory consists simply in acknowledging the 
Greek accents, as we find them in the books, as the law 
for the pronunciation of the separate words, but refusing 
to allow them their natural force under certain rhythmical 
conditions. Thus, he says, that at the end of a hexameter 
verse such a word as eOrj/ce must be pronounced edj/ce, be- 
cause the last syllable of a hexameter verse being long, 
the accent, according to a well-known canon of Greek 
orthoepy, must fall on the penult ! Now, the objection 
to this theory is threefold — (1.) It is not true that the 
last syllable of hexameter verse, as Sfy/re, is long; it is 
short, and the time is filled up by the pause which belongs 
to the end of the line, like a rest in music ; (2.) The 
theory proceeds on a supposed connexion between prose 
accent and rhythmical emphasis, which is fundamentally 
false ; and (3.) The whole theory is a figment spun out of 
the brain of the writer, without a shadow of authority 
from ancient grammarians and metricians. This being so, 
the natural consequence followed; — the book explained 
nothing, and changed nothing. If everybody could not 
answer it, nobody cared to understand it. 

Immediately upon the back of the learned Bishop's 
treatise, in 1797, appeared a little book entitled Metron 
Ariston; or, a new Pleasure Recommended, with a ruffed 
and bearded effigy of Meetkerche fronting the title-page, 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 371 

and a motto which sufficiently indicates the temper and 
direction of the writer — 

" Tollite barbarum 
Morem perpetuum, dulcia barbare 
Laedentem metra, quae Venus 
Quinta parte sui nectaris imbuit." 

This book was not written by a scholar, but by a man 
of taste and vivacity, and a gay self-reliance which stands 
him in good stead against a whole host of scholastic 
cuirassiers. In point of tendency and contents, this book 
is nothing more than a repetition of Meetkerche and Voss, 
and those writers who have maintained the right of 
rhythmical as opposed to the accentual recitation of Greek 
and Latin verse ; but the striking fact which the title of 
the book suggests is, that the masters and teachers of the 
great English schools, who certainly could not be accused 
of paying any partial attention to accent, were the very 
persons who had so thoroughly ignored the practice of 
rhythm in their teaching, that it was a discovery to the 

i author of the book to find that there was such a thing as 
rhythmical reading of classic verse ; and this discovery, 

' with a prompt philanthropy, he hastens to communicate 
to the ingenuous youth of the nation under the inviting 
name of " a new pleasure." This entirely agrees with the 
complaint which we have just heard the right reverend 
Bishop make with regard to the absurdity of reading 
Greek poetry with Latin accents, and calling it reading by 

i quantity. No wonder that clever schoolboys on occasion 
should begin to dream that the learned and reverend 
doctors, by whom their ears had been indoctrinated in 
the unpleasant mysteries of long and short syllables, at 
bottom knew less about the matter than they might have 
known themselves with the help of a little unsophisticated 



372 ON THE PLAGE AND POWER 

juvenile instinct. And accordingly tfre writer of Metron 
Ariston tells us that "he always indeed had an idea 
that our very anomalous and irrational way of reading 
Greek and Latin poetry was founded on error ; yet, from 
indolence, he had conformed, though reluctantly, to the 
general practice, because it was not his business to exam- 
ine the error and seek its remedy." But what he did not 
seek for, he goes on to tell us, like Worcester's rebellion, 
came in his way, and he found it ; and the good Hermes, 
on whom he stumbled to direct him in his rhythmical 
wanderings one day, was a learned Italian ecclesiastic, 
while they were walking together in the Campo Vaccino 
at Rome one morning, and talking of Horace, and quoting 
the well-known line — 

" Ibam forte via sacra sicut meus est mos." 

The full musical weight with which the learned Italian 
recited this verse struck the Englishman with a pleasant 
surprise ; whereupon the priest, divining the cause of his 
satisfaction, began to expound to him the correct theory 
of classical recitation according to Meetkerche, " the great 
ambassador of a little state." Against this true doctrine, 
without which verse had no meaning, and lost more than 
half its suavity, the English scholars and schoolmasters 
were in the systematic habit of sinning, by pronouncing 
eq'uus, for instance, a horse, as if it were aequus, equitable 
— by shortening the final syllables of all words, and pro- 
nouncing dominos as if it were dominos, and saerd the 
ablative singular, like sacra the nominative plural ; and 
by turning anapests into dactyles, dactyles into tribrachs, 
spondees into trochees, iambi into pyrrhics — in fact doing 
everything that could be done systematically to turn order 
into disorder in this region, and " by this most abominably 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 373 

absurd custom, destroying at once both sound and sense, 
and seeming to sin from a love of the very ugliness of 
sinning." These are hard words, but not, in fact, one 
whit more strong than those which we have quoted from 
the English Bishop ; nor is it possible, indeed, to conceive 
anything at once more unscientific, more tasteless, and 
more unpractical than the way in which prosody and 
rhythm have been handled in the great English classical 
schools up to the present hour. On this point, certainly, 
the author of Metron Ariston, a single light-horseman, 
could triumphantly ride up and attack without fear a 
whole army of big blundering and self-contradictory 
: hoplites. As to accents, however, about them he wisely 
said nothing ; but allowed them quietly to lie in the 
state of suspended animation to which they had been con- 
demned by his patron-god Meetkerche. If these mute, 
mysterious, little oblique and curved lines were ever to 
revive into speaking significance at the touch of some 
philological wizard, the author of Metron Ariston cer- 
tainly did not possess the secret for their disenchant- 
ment ; nor, indeed, if he had possessed it, would he have 
cared to use it; for the accents, whatever virtue they 
might possess, could add but little to the luxury of the 
new rhythmical pleasure which he had discovered. 

But what were the great German scholars doing all 
this while, — the Heynes, the Wolfs, and the Hermanns, 
the founders of that stable and splendid edifice of philo- 
logical learning which has placed Germany in the van of 
erudite and thoughtful research during the whole of the 
present century ? In the preface to the second edition of 
his Odyssey, Wolf remarks that in the matter of the 
accents, " the editors of the previous centuries had shown 
a great laxness of procedure, a fault which had commenced 



.!' 



374 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

with so illustrious a name as Henry Stephanus, who in 
this respect had declined from the accuracy of his prede- 
cessors, Chalcondylus and Aldus." And after a few re- 
marks on points of detail, follows a remarkable witness to 
the practical disuse into which accents had fallen in 
Germany just as in England towards the end of the last 
century. " In fact, no person now-a-days — and for many 
centuries back — ever hears a Greek accent ; and only a 
few, indeed, seem to believe that the doctrine of the 
grammarians on this subject is a thing that belongs to a 
complete course of teaching." 1 This passage is decided as 
to the general disuse of accents among the Germans in 
Wolf's time ; but the phrase seit vielen Jahrhunderten is 
certainly too strong ; for the works of Meetkerche, Vos- 
sius, and Henninius are sufficient to prove the living 
predominance of the Byzantine tradition in respect to 
accents in the scholastic practice of their time. An 
equally emphatic declaration in favour of accents is made 
by Hermann in his famous work De emendandd ratione 
Grammatices Grcecce ; 2 but whether these two illus- 
trious scholars contented themselves with publishing an 
authoritative manifesto on the necessity of maintaining 
accents as an inherited doctrine of genuine Hellenic 
orthodoxy, or took any steps to put their views into that 
practical shape which alone could give them significance 
to articulate-speaking mortals, I have not been able to 
learn. Certain it is, however, that the stagnant waters of 
the schools — in Germany much more apt than in England 
to deduce practice from principle — began to be moved in 
this matter ; and, according to information which I have 
from continental scholars of high reputation, the accents 

1 These extracts are taken from an historical review of the opinions of 
scholars about accents in Wagner's Accent Lehre. Helmstadt, 1807. 

2 Ch. xiii. De accentu. 



" 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 375 

are now pronounced in a great number of the best German 
gymnasia. I myself, some forty years ago, heard Professor 
Boeckh, in Berlin, reading the Iambic verse of the trage- 
dians with a distinct and well-marked observance both of 
accent and quantity. The matter appears to have been 
left pretty much to the taste of individual teachers, 
and we may feel perfectly assured that the natural con- 
servatism of teachers would have resisted all change in 
this matter, unless it had been incontestably proved that 
the change carried with it the double advantage of scien- 
tific truth and practical convenience. Whilst the matter 
was thus not only fairly ventilated, but to a large extent 
embodied in the scholastic practice of Germany, in Eng- 
land not a single step seems to have been taken either to 
the recognition of the principle or the settlement of the 
practice of Greek accents. The well-known declaration 
of Porson, no doubt, in a note to the Medea, 1 gave the 
imperial imprimatur to certain traditional marks as a fact 
on paper, and of course put a stop for ever to the inchoate 
practice of printing Greek books without such marks ; 
but it was a fact which seemed to remain as mysterious 
as a row of hieroglyphics on an obelisk before the great 
decipherment of Champollion. In fact, to use Scripture 
language, notwithstanding the authoritative dictum of 
the great Cantab., the doctrine has remained in England 
up to the present hour a meaningless thing, " having a 
name to live while it is dead." In Scotland, indeed, a 
country too much accustomed slavishly to follow English 
authority in classical matters, twenty years ago I pub- 
lished a short protest against the gross inconsistency and 



1 "Si quis igitur vestrum ad accu- rationem quam maturrime comparet in 
ratam Grcecarum litterarum scientiam propositoqveperstet,scurrarumdkacitate 
aspirat, is probabilem sibi accentuum et .stultorum derisione immotus." 



376 ON THE PLAGE AND POWER 

grave practical grievance of inculcating rules about a host 
of mysterious marks which gave neither ideas to the intel- 
lect nor direction to the ear j 1 it had become clear to me 
as sunlight, not only from meditation on the nature of 
the case, but from an accurate study of the ancient gram- 
marians, that Greek accents contained the two elements of 
elevation and stress of voice, and are, in fact, practically 
identical with the accents in English, Italian, German, 
and other modern languages. And this truth I have 
carried out in practice for twenty years with increasing 
profit and satisfaction. In England, however, as was to 
have been expected, no attention was paid to a Greek 
argument coming from the north side of the Tweed ; 
and, accordingly, in the next work, that of Chandler, 2 
which issued from the Oxford press, we find the whole 
subject flung back into a grim limbo of despair, and 
involved in a mantle of impenetrable - darkness. In the 
preface to his work this author goes so far as to assert 
that neither Porson nor any other scholar, " while sanc- 
tioning the practice of accentuating Greek by their 
example, has condescended to justify it by sound and 
conclusive reasons." Porson specially, it is hinted in terms 
more vigorous than polite, " gave assertion for proof in 
the matter, actuated partly by his contempt for Wake- 
field, who happened to entertain a different opinion from 
his own." Then he goes on to proclaim the utter hope- 
lessness of being able to arrive at any certainty with 
regard to the meaning of accents ; it is not even certain 
that they did not " indicate the length or shortness 
of syllables ;" he denounces " the absurdity of those 

1 The Pronunciation of Greek : Accent 2 A Practical Introduction to Greek 

and Quantity; a Philological Inquiry. Accentuation. By H. W. Chandler, M. A. 
Edinburgh, 1852. Oxford, 1862. 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 377 

f ,wlio perpetuate in writing, a something to which they 
never attend in reading, and who persist in ornamenting 
their Greek with three small scratches, the very meaning 
of which is doubtful and perhaps unknown," and laments 
in the most pathetic terms his own evil destiny in having 
had anything to do with the tangled disorder of " these 
troublesome appendages. " 

" There 's something wrong in accents — cnrsed spite 
That ever I was born to set it right ! " 

In fact, it appears not a little extraordinary that a 
writer who uses such strong language should not have 
followed out consistently the practice of his predecessor 
Henninius, and flung the whole cargo of Byzantine 
lumber overboard ; for what task can be imagined more 
irksome and more fruitless than to spend long months of 
painful inquiry, with fret of brain and vexation of vision, 
upon every mappik - and dagesh of a gospel in which the 
writer does not believe ? Almost contemporaneously with 
this remarkable book of Mr. Chandler, appeared an inter- 
esting paper on accent and quantity by Professor Munro 
of Cambridge. 1 . The occasion of this discourse was a Latin 
inscription in accentual hexameters from Cirta in Numidia, 
and supposed by the professor to belong to the third 
century of our era. In commenting on these verses, of 
course, the writer was led to explain both what accent 
meant, and how it came to pass that accentual verse, at 
so very early a date, came to usurp the place of quanti- 
tative, which only we now acknowledge as classical. In 
making this explanation Professor Munro lays down the 
following propositions : — 

(1.) That the acute accent of the ancients was a mere 

1 On a Metrical Latin Inscription, Transactions of the Cambridge Philo- 
copied by Mr. Blakesley, at Cirta. — sophical Society, vol. x. part 2. 1861. 



378 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

elevation of the voice, without any stress on the accented 
syllable. 

(2.) That in the composition of Greek and Latin verse, 
the metre was determined by quantity alone, and that 
accent had no influence on it direct or indirect. 

(3.) That, nevertheless, the quantity of syllables was 
a matter which swine-herds in the days of Homer, and 
ploughmen in those of Plautus, had imbibed with their 
mothers milk, and could discriminate with the nicest 
precision. 

(4.) That by some strange and, to us, unaccountable 
process, the nature of the Greek and Roman accent was 
suddenly changed in such fashion that, from being a mere 
raising or sharpening of the tone " it became a stress," " a 
mere stress," " a stiff and monotonous stress," a stress 
which is always accompanied with " the lengthening of 
the quantity," having nothing in common with the genuine 
classical accent except the name ; and that by this strange 
and inexplicable plunge, the accentual poetry of the 
mediaeval hymns, and the whole of our modern metrical 
system, so early as the third century had started into 
recognised existence. 

So much for the theory of the matter. With regard 
to the strange and unscientific practice of the English 
great schoo]s and colleges, the following passage is 
notable : — 

" It appears from what has been said, that we English, 
in reading Latin, place the accent generally, but by no 
means always, on the proper syllable. But then, we have 
entirely changed its nature, making it a mere stress, in- 
stead of a simple raising of the tone, without any lengthen- 
ing of the quantity. And Prsecilius and his contempo- 
raries already did the same. From them, and their still 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 379 

more degraded descendants, the Italians, and other 
western nations, we inherit this debased accent, which had 
usurped and overthrown the rights of quantity. In the 
second line of the fflneid we read Italiam fdto profugus 
with the accent on the right syllable ; but on the same 
principle we ought to say — and Praecilius, indeed, and the 
Romans for centuries after him, did say — Lavindque, with 
the accent on the second a. We flatter ourselves that we 
thus preserve the quantity, but that is a mere delusion. 
It we feel by a mere mental process. Whether we pro- 
nounce profugus or profugus, quantity is equally violated. 
In the same way we read Greek with this debased Latin 
accent, and fancy that we preserve the quantity while 
sacrificing the accent. The modern Greeks read old Greek 
with the ancient Greek accent, debased in the same way 
into a mere stress. We think them, they think us, in 
the wrong ; and in different ways we are both equally in 
the wrong. Mrjviv aeihe Oea in an English or Italian, and 
fjbfjvLv aecSe Bed in a modern Greek mouth, are equally 
remote from the accent and quantity given to the words 
by Homer or Demosthenes/' 

It will be observed that this passage touches exactly 
on the same absurdity which, sixty years earlier, had 
roused the sprightly indignation of the author of Metron 
Ariston, and the grave episcopal censure of Dr. Horsley. 

In the Cambridge Journal of Philology, vol. i., for 1868, 
appeared an article on the English pronunciation of 
Greek, by W. G. Clark, then public orator, Cambridge. 
Mr. Clark is a scholar particularly well entitled to speak 
on this subject, both from his general accomplishments, 
which are far from being confined to the ordinary routine 
of an English classical scholar, and specially from his 
having travelled in Greece, and taken note of the actual 



380 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

accents of the language as at present spoken by the 
people. In theory Mr. Clark entirely agrees with Pro- 
fessor Munro, that the ancient Greek accent consisted 
merely in the elevation of the tone, while the accent of 
the modern Greek includes "a stress precisely like our 
own, which is given by prolonging the sound, as well as 
by raising the note." When it falls upon a syllable it 
lengthens the vowel except before a double consonant. 
Thus Xoyo? is pronounced Awyo?, ovos lovos, and so forth. 
With regard to scholastic practice Mr. Clark is of opinion 
that, while our English Greek vocalization is altogether 
anomalous and indefensible, and must be abandoned, the 
present system of reading Greek with Latin accents 
should not be touched, because the modern system of 
accentuation is widely different from the ancient, and its 
adoption could only tend " to confuse such ideas as we at 
present possess of the rhythm of ancient Greek verse." 
And again, "It is impossible in practice to recur to the 
ancient system of accentuation, supposing that we have 
ascertained it in theory. Here and there a person may 
be found with such an exquisite ear, and such plastic 
organs of speech, as to be able to reproduce the ancient 
distinction between the length and tone of syllables 
accented and unaccented, and many not so gifted may 
fancy that they reproduce it when they do nothing of the 
kind. For the mass of boys and men, pupils as well as 
teachers, the distinction is practically impossible." So 
Mr. Clark leaves us, so far as action is concerned, in a 
plight little better than that in which we were left by 
Chandler, — not enveloped, indeed, in impermeable mys- 
tery, but clogged with impracticable fetters, and groaning 
under a yoke of grammatical tradition which neither we 
nor our fathers were able to bear. 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 381 

A strange and a grateful contrast to the general cur- 
rent of English scholarship on this subject is presented 
by Mr. Geldart, of Balliol College, Oxford, in his interest- 
ing and ingenious book, entitled The Modern Greek Lan- 
guage in its relation to Ancient Greek; Oxford, 1870. 
In the third chapter of this work the author states views 
with regard to accent and quantity which lift him com- 
pletely out of what has always appeared to me the sort 
of enchanted circle of confusion and delusion in which 
English scholars are involved the moment they approach 
this subject. Mr. Geldart is a decided advocate for 
accents, both in theory and practice, and he says roundly 
that " our prejudice against accents is for the most part 
insular, and deepened, to boot, by the peculiarities of our 
own insular pronunciation." He blows to the wind in a 
single sentence the vulgar error of English scholars, so 
often noticed in these pages, that accent has the necessary 
effect of lengthening the syllable on which it falls, the 
accented syllable in English being in fact as often short 
as long, as in get' -ting, pick'-ing, while a long syllable is 
often unaccented, as financial, fertile, a priori, in which 
last the first syllable is nearly always pronounced long, 
in spite of the fact that it is short in Latin. It is accord- 
ingly a complete delusion to imagine " that the Latin 
accent is either an indispensable or an infallible device 
for marking the right quantity of Greek syllables. " With 
regard to accent he makes the just remark that the rais- 
ing of the note and the increase of the stress generally 
go together. He further denies altogether — and on this 
point he is a witness of great authority — that the modern 
Greeks always, or even in a majority of cases, lengthen 
the syllable on which the accent falls ; and in regard to 
the relation of accent and quantity he shows that neither 



382 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

is modern poetry always governed by the mere spoken 
accent, nor is ancient poetry altogether regardless of it, 
but that the real regulator, both of ancient and of modern 
poetry, though in very different ways, is rhythm, which 
is determined by the musical beat. How far the spoken 
accent was heard, as it were, through the rhythmical 
movement, depended principally upon whether the verse 
was sung or recited. In pure singing there might be 
heard only a faint glimmer of the spoken accent ; in 
prose it was the prominent element, and directed the 
flow of the period ; while between these two extremes 
there might be several intermediate styles of utterance 
in which the spoken accent was more or less prominent, 
according to the greater or less approach of the style of 
recitation to colloquial prose. 

It will not be difficult, after this long and strange 
historical survey, to sum up the conclusions to which, by 
the consideration of the various facts and arguments, we 
are inevitably led. We find ourselves, in fact, after more 
than three centuries of confusion, one-sidedness, and hal- 
lucination, arrived at a point of view where no fact or 
principle necessary to a just conclusion is concealed, and 
all apparent contradictions find a happy conciliation. In 
particular, the whole history of the controversy displays 
the fact that, in one form or another, quantity is the 
bugbear, and that from Voss and Meetkerche to Munro, 
Chandler and Glark, a sacred regard for the rights of 
metre is the apology for the monstrous invasion of the 
province of Greek by Roman accents. But those who 
have attended to the course of our argument and historic 
survey will easily perceive that the interference of Greek 
accents with the laws of Greek metre is a pure hallucina- 
tion ; inasmuch as — 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 383 

1. It has been amply proved that in the case of indi- 
vidual words the predominance given to one syllable by 
the stretch, stress, or emphasis of the voice with which 
the acute accent is naturally accompanied has no neces- 
sary tendency to lengthen the syllable on which it is 
laid. Through the whole argument of those who oppose 
Greek accents a confusion runs between two things, 
which in this matter must be kept carefully apart — a 
confusion between a short syllable unaccented compared 
with the same syllable accented, and a short accented 
syllable with a long syllable accented. When the three 
terms rinepa, rjfxepa, and far)' pa are compared, the middle 
syllable of the middle term, while it is more prominent, 
and may be in some degree longer than the same syllable 
of the first term, is decidedly short when compared with 
the same syllable of the third term. If, therefore, any 
short syllable, whether in Greek or English, on which 
the accent falls, is in danger of being pronounced long, 
it arises not from the nature of the case, but from the 
ignorance, carelessness, or stupidity of the teacher ; and, 
in fact, a great part of the strange confusion which has so 
long prevailed on this subject may not unreasonably be 
traced to the want of the directing presence of a living 
rhetorical and musical culture in our great English schools 
and colleges. 

2. The second great element of confusion which has 
been introduced into this matter is the gratuitous and 
altogether unauthorized assumption, that because our 
metrical composition follows the laws of spoken accent, 
therefore in Greek and Latin the same law was neces- 
sarily observed. In the writings of Hyphaestion and of 
those who lay down the canons of classical verse, there is 
not a single word said about the spoken accents ; and the 



384 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

sure inference is, that in metrical composition they were, 
as Professor Munro justly remarks, systematically ignored, 
or, if attended to at all, only in a subordinate, excep- 
tional, incidental, and even accidental way. Nothing, 
therefore, could be more mistaken than the attempt of 
Horsley to give a new theory of Homeric scansion, 
founded on the doctrine of the spoken accents. On what 
principle, then, it will be asked, was the Greek poetry 
written ? Can it be supposed that a nation of refined 
taste and high culture could be delighted with the bar- 
barism of pronouncing words one way in prose, and 
another way in verse ? We answer, there is nothing at 
all strange in this supposition ; and that, whether it 
appear strange or not, it was certainly the fact. To under- 
stand this, instead of transferring the laws of our modern 
poetry wholesale to the poetry of the Greeks, let us rather 
transfer ourselves from an age of books, reviews, news- 
papers, and reading-rooms into an age where there was 
no such thing as books or reading at all, where prose 
composition was altogether unknown, and where every 
composition, not purely ephemeral, was made to be sung, 
and had its existence only in the element of music. Now, 
we need not at the present day set forth a formal proof 
that Homer and the pre-Homeric teachers of Greece were 
not dvayvcoo-Tai but dotSol, and that all hexameter verse, the 
current form of the oldest Greek metrical compositions, 
was originally sung, and not recited. Under these con- 
ditions it naturally conformed to the laws of musical 
composition ; and what these laws were, especially in 
relation to spoken accent, it is not difficult to realize. 
What music principally demands from poetry is a mass of 
rich and full vocalization, to correspond with the measured 
now of the notes ; for the vowels are the musical element 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 385 

in human speech, and especially the deep broad vowels 
pronounced long, and not rapidly rattled over. This 
element, therefore, was naturally preserved in the first 
place : that is to say, Hellenic poetry was founded on 
quantity. But what of accent ? The rhythmical march 
of speech adapted to music, as every one knows, is secured 
by the element of equality expressed in the succession of 
equal spaces of sound, marked by recurrent emphasized 
pulsations ; these pulsations constitute what is called the 
musical accent, or beating of time, as it is vulgarly called. 
Now, it certainly might have been desirable to make this 
rhythmical accent of the music correspond in every case 
with the spoken accent of the words ; but this was not 
done, for the very simple reason that the choice of poeti- 
cal language would have been too much fettered by the 
constant double demand on the poet of conformity in 
every case, both with the spoken quantity and the spoken 
accent. Nor should this appear at all strange. As it is, 
we see how often Homer — as in aOavaros and other words 
— is obliged to put an artificial length upon tribrachic 
feet in order to get them admitted into the dactylic 
march of his verse ; and how impossible it would have 
been to compose a long poem under the strict law of both 
quantitative and accentual conformity, we may see from 
the fact that, in our own poetry, we have contented our- 
selves with fettering one of the elements and leaving the 
other free ; that is to say, that, while we never, or very 
rarely, allow our spoken accent to clash with the rhyth- 
mical beat, we constantly take the liberty in our sung 
psalms and songs of drawing out short syllables to any 
length, and skipping over long ones with any amount of 
metrical celerity. Here, therefore, the Gordian knot is 
untied : the Greek poetry made to be sung is governed 

2b 



386 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

by quantity, the musical element of language ; the modern 
poetry made to be read is governed by accent, the collo- 
quial accent. What Nature, or rather the necessities of 
Art, have kept asunder, let no man bring together. Let 
no man imagine that colloquial accents, whether Greek or 
Roman, can possibly come into collision with the laws of a 
poetry so essentially musical in its character as the Greek. 
3. But the ancients, it will be said, though their poetry 
was all musical in its birth, and a verse had no meaning 
except as sung, certainly did recite their poetry at an 
early period. Of course ; and in this case it is obvious 
that a poetry constructed as part of the musical art was 
to a certain extent put out of Nature the moment it was 
translated into the region of spoken verse. In this case 
a collision between the musical beat and the accented 
syllables was unavoidable, and some sort of compromise 
would naturally be the result. This compromise, how- 
ever, would on the whole be decidedly to the advantage 
of the musical rhythm, as opposed to the colloquial 
accent. For metre, as we have seen, was metre only in 
virtue of the regularly recurrent musical beat; and to 
abolish this was to destroy metre, and to turn verse into 
prose, as, in fact, we often hear English schoolboys do, 
when reading Horace, and as the modern Greeks do when 
they read Homer accentually. But that the ancients 
could not have done this is manifest both from the promi- 
nence of music in their national culture and from the 
effect of the rhythmical stroke in lengthening the shortest 
vowels, even in the verse of Virgil, whiclr certainly was 
not sung. The poet who wrote 

Liminaque' laurusque Dei 
must have had his ear tuned to the march of a verse 
which gave that marked preponderance to the first syl- 

4 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 387 

lable of a foot which is musically given to the first note 
of a bar, and which allowed the licence of lengthening a 
short vowel in such a position after the example of Homer, 
specially before a word beginning with a liquid. Meet- 
kerche and Yoss were therefore right in reading classical 
verse mainly by this rhythmical beat, and practically 
disregarding the spoken accent. It does not follow, 
however, that though the rhythmical accent remained 
dominant even in spoken verse, it therefore exercised an 
exclusive sway. In many cases, of course, there would 
be no clash, and this, indeed, regularly happened in the 
two last feet of a Latin hexameter. But in other cases, 
where a clash did occur, the occasional bringing forward 
of the spoken accent might serve to break the monotony 
of a merely musical rhythm, and cause it to approach 
nearer to the march of dignified prose eloquence. Thus, 
the first line of Virgil may either be accented 

Arma virumque cano' Trojai' qui primus ab oris, 
or 

Arma virumque can'o Tro'jae qui primus ab oris ; 

and in both cases the true quantities are preserved ; but 
in the second method the spoken accent is allowed to 
control two words to the prejudice of the musical beat, 
by whose regular recurrence the hexameter verse was 
originally framed. In this way it was quite easy to 
recite Latin hexameters or Greek iambics in such a 
manner that, while the rhythmical beat mainly ruled, 
and no short pliable was ever heard where the music had 
a long note, tne spoken accent to which the ear had been 
habituated in conversation did nevertheless generally 
shine through, £nd in special cases assert itself with that 
natural emphasis which subordinates rhythm in order to 
aid expression, and to prevent monotony. 



388 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

4. It will now be evident how entirely Professor 
Munro was mistaken when he expressed surprise at the 
fact, that, while the rudest boor in the days of Plautus 
was familiar with the exact laws of quantitative metre, 
even well-educated gentlemen of the middle-class before 
the time of Constantine were apparently unable to write 
anything but accentual metre, constructed on the same 
principle as the Byzantine gtI^oi ttoXitikoL The rudest boor, 
no doubt, could distinguish a long syllable from a short, 
and could discriminate the penultimate vowel in pdt'er 
and md'ter in a way that seems impossible to the gross 
ears of some of our English teachers. Our own peasants 
will distinguish got from goat, or god from goad, exactly 
in the same way ; but it will require more than a rhe- 
torical flourish from Cicero to prove that the peasants of 
Italy, or even Attica, at any time were perfectly master of 
the complete doctrine of quantity as taught in the musical 
schools. For it must always be borne in mind that the 
practice of these schools was to a certain extent artificial ; 
it was founded on certain concessions which the currency 
of common life had made to the necessities of art ; and the 
common people, whose ears were trained mainly by the 
spoken accent, could not be expected either to compose 
verses in neglect of that accent, or to sympathize fully with 
its neglect in the case of verses composed by cultivated 
poets, except in so far as their own education had kept them 
in living connexion with those schools of music from which 
the cultivated poetry had emanated. Now in the best ages 
of Greece this living connexion naturally existed ; and the 
effect of custom and association would be such, that no 
other verses but those composed on the original quantita- 
tive principle would be recognised as legitimate even by 
the vulgar ear. But the moment that a great national 



: 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 389 

decay commenced, and schools of popular culture were 
neglected, from that moment the common people, left to 
themselves, if ever they tried poetical composition, could 
do so only in obedience to the instinct which governs all 
poetry not intimately associated with the musical art. 
Poetry now became a species of measured conversation to 
which laws were given by the spoken accent, and where 
the fixed musical recurrence of long and short syllables was 
systematically ignored. In this change there is nothing 
strange or mysterious ; on the contrary, it was the natural, 
and, we may say, necessary consequence of passing from a 
musical to a colloquial epoch in literature ; and as a fleet- 
footed man, when he leaves the ice and takes off his 
skates, passes to a kind of locomotion governed by differ- 
ent conditions and subject to different laws, so a people, 
shaken loose from all musical tradition and left to form a 
poetry for itself, will infallibly fall upon a form of verse in 
which the musical value of vowels will be sacrificed to the 
familiar control of accentually preponderant syllables. 

5. One word remains on the question of scholastic 
practice, which has been such a bugbear to our teachers. 
Now, with regard to this problem, it is one of those to 
which, as Geldart says, the old adage applies, solvitur 
ambulando. What appears impossible in theory is often 
easy in practice. If you wish to learn how to use your 
legs, just rise up and walk. If you imagine that there is 
any difficulty in saying Hco/cpar-i/? without saying 2Wp<x tt;?, 
or bftn'us without saying bonus, just put yourself under a 
master of elocution for five minutes, and you will shortly 
be drilled out of your difficulty. But why should the ears 
of teachers be haunted by such a hallucination as that, by 
placing the Eoman accent on the penult of all dissyllabic 
words, they are furnished with some sure spell against 



390 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

the violation of quantity ? Is it not quite evident, rather, 
that the short quantity of the first syllable of /3to?, a boiv, 
is much more easily preserved by the natural oxytone 
accent than by the Latin accent /3E'o? on the penult ? And 
if the quantity of the long penult in the verb Tpi'fico is 
more effectively brought out by the accent on that syl- 
lable than if it had been on the last, is it not manifest 
that the same syllable, being short in the substantive 
TpX/3rj, is more certainly pronounced short — according to 
the argument of the Latinizing Hellenists themselves — 
with the native oxytone accent than with the imported 
Latin one ? Take again the word /cafjudpa, a vault, where 
all the vowels are doubtful, and where, of course, the 
quantity of each syllable can be recognised only by utter- 
ance. According to the current method, the accent, laid 
on the first syllable of this word, should inform me that 
the syllable is long by virtue of the stress, and it does 
inform me also, if I am to believe my ears, that the other 
two syllables are short. But three parts of the informa- 
tion thus given are false ; for the accent is not on the 
first syllable, and the quantity of the first syllable is 
short, and that of the last long. On the other hand, if I 
pronounce the same word according to the principles laid 
down in this paper, I learn not only where the accent is, 
but that the two first syllables are short, and the last long. 
The fact of the matter is, that, while the Greek accent, 
rightly placed, informs the ear rightly both as to the 
accent and the quantity of the syllables of which a word 
is composed, the Latin accent inverts and perverts both, 
and teaches, with regard to accent and quantity, only 
what must be unlearned. The opponents of accents, who 
absurdly call their Latinizing method the quantitative 
pronunciation of Greek, ought to bear in mind that, in 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 391 

practical teaching, next to pronouncing the long syllables 
long and the short short, the best way to teach quantity 
is to pronounce the accent, which either stands upon the 
long syllable and favours its prolongation, or stands in 
such a definite relation to that syllable that the quantity 
of the unaccented syllable is known from the place of the 
accented. 

But the great practical difficulty to which teachers 
allude is, perhaps, rather rhythmical than prosodiacal. 
The pronunciation by the Latin accent, says Mr. Clark, 
is the only way we have of teaching our pupils to appre- 
ciate the measure of classical verse. Abolish the Latin 
accentuation of Greek prose, and you turn the organ of 
Homer into a hurdy-gurdy. Now, with regard to this 
matter, I would observe, in the first place, that if the 
young gentlemen who usually come to our universities 
were to lose all the rhythmical appreciation of Greek 
verse that really lives in their ear, and not merely in 
their understanding, they would lose little that is worth 
keeping. For what are the facts of the case ? The 
observation of the Latin accent facilitates the rhythmical 
reading of the two last feet of a hexameter verse ; this is 
an accident of the Latin language ; that is all. But not 
even in the reading of Latin does the reading, according 
to the Latin prose accents, prevent the constant occur- 
rence of a clash between the spoken accent and the 
rhythmical beat. In the Ovidian pentameter such a 
clash must always occur twice, and in the two most 
marked places of the verse. And, if the absence of the 
oxytone accent causes this opposition in Latin, is it not 
strange that we should banish this same accent from its 
natural place in a Greek word, in order, as we say, to 
avoid, but actually in a great number of cases to produce, 



392 ON THE PLACE AND POWER 

a collision between the rhythmical beat and that accent ? 
Take, for instance, this second line from " the Wasps" of 
Aristophanes — 

<l>v\a/cr]v KaraXveiv WKTepivrjv h&acncofiev, 

and it is plain that in the only two places where a clash 
does occur between the spoken accent and the rhythmical 
beat, according to the Latinized accent, that clash dis- 
appears the moment the words are read according to their 
natural Greek accentuation. And so, not only in Iambic 
verse, but in every verse whatever, the introduction of 
the Latin accent must jar with the rhythmical flow of 
the line wherever the rhythmical stroke falls, as it con- 
stantly does, on the last syllable of a word. This prac- 
tical objection therefore vanishes in smoke. That gross- 
eared and ill-trained persons may be enabled to receive 
the harmonies of the two last feet in a Homeric line, 
with a little less trouble, or with no trouble at all, no 
wise educator can deem a sufficient reason for invading 
the whole inherited intonation of the finest language in 
the world, with sounds which, however proper on the 
banks of their native Tiber, on the banks of the Ilissus 
must be felt to be a gross barbarism. The rhythmical 
objection from the practical side is, in fact, only an 
ingenious apology to cover carelessness, to prop prejudice, 
and to mask with an attitude of apparent utility a peda- 
gogic procedure, alike unscientific in principle and self- 
contradictory in practice. 

Finally, if those who delight themselves in exaggerat- 
ing imaginary difficulties have any honest desire to see 
how they disappear in the actual business of teaching, let 
them come to me ; for I am a practical man, and speak 
from the experience of half a lifetime. I teach Greek on 
the principle that the ear is the natural and legitimate 



OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 393 

organ which must be addressed in the first place. I 
pronounce every word according to its just accent and 
quantity, allowing its own natural emphasis to sway the 
proper syllable of the Greek word, just as the Latin 
accent emphasizes the proper syllable of the Latin word, 
taking special care at the same time, that in no case shall 
the emphasis of the accent be drawn into a prolongation 
of a short vowel. In the matter of quantity, I allow 
length by position to be pronounced short, according to 
the English habit, partly because I do not feel sure that 
this length was anything but a metrical licence unknown 
to prose, partly because I should not think it advisable to 
encumber the English light-horseman with a greater 
weight of heavy Spondaic armour than he can conveniently 
carry. On the elevation of tone which naturally accom- 
panies the stress, and indeed always seems to have done 
so at the end of a clause, I do not curiously insist, the 
accent being sufficiently marked without it. As little 
do I endeavour to distinguish between a long accented 
syllable, as in ^vi), and a circumflex, as in fiaXkop, though 
I have not the slightest difficulty myself in bringing out 
the combination of rising and falling inflexion on the 
same syllable which the circumflex properly denotes. 
Thus, in the reading of prose, which should be continued 
assiduously for six months or a year before poetry is 
meddled with : I then take up Homer, and forthwith 
intimate to my students that, as the whole doctrine of 
Greek metres was a part of the science of music, it 
necessarily followed the laws of that science, and can be 
understood only by an entire subordination or sinking of 
the spoken accent in the first place, and a recitation ac- 
cording to the regularly recurrent beats of the rhythm. 
This, which teachers imagine to be so difficult, is one of 

2 c 



394 ON ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 

the easiest things in the world. Most human beings have 
ears, and can beat time. Even serpents, and elephants, 
and dancing bears can do this. And in order that the 
rhythm may be thoroughly worked into the ear, I have 
no objection even to what may be called a little sing-song 
at starting; but the pupil, of course, as he advances, 
must be trained to counteract the monotony of mere 
rhythm by that variety which a proper attention to ex- 
pression and punctuation produces. In this way the 
whole perplexing and tedious doctrine of accent and 
quantity is learned from beginning to end by the ear; 
the pain of prosody becomes a pleasure ; accent and 
quantity learn to observe their proper bounds, each, happy 
in his recognised domain, forgetting all thought of making 
a hostile invasion into the territory of the other. The only 
difficulty in the matter arises from the necessity of teach- 
ing a number of thoughtless and indifferent young men to 
unlearn all that lumber of false quantities and false accents 
which has either been systematically built up, or care- 
lessly allowed to accumulate in the schools ; but this is a 
difficulty which it is in the power of schoolmasters, and of 
schoolmasters alone, radically to remove. And I feel con- 
vinced that, so soon as a radical reform in this matter 
shall be seriously undertaken by teachers, not only will 
the inculcation of classical Greek be much facilitated, but 
the organs of utterance being rendered more flexible and 
more amenable to training, will accommodate themselves 
to the characteristic peculiarities of German, French, and 
other living orthoepies, with an aptitude the want of 
which is now so frequently lamented. 



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The object of the author in writing on this subject has mainly been to 
place it on a basis altogether independent of the oi'dinary Cartesian 
system, instead of regarding it as only a special form of Abridged 
Notation. A short chapter on Determinants has been introduced. 

Frost. — Works by Percival Frost, M.A., late Fellow of St. 
John's College, Mathematical Lecturer of King's College, Cam- 
bridge : — 
THE FIRST THREE SECTIONS OF NEWTON'S PRIN- 
CIPIA. With Notes and Illustrations. Also a Collection of 
Problems, principally intended as Examples of Newton's Methods. 
Second Edition. 8vo. cloth, icv. 6d. 



8 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 



Fro S t — continued. 

The author 's principal intention is to explain difficulties which may le 
encountered by the student on first reading the Principia, and to 
illustrate the advantages of a careful study of the methods employed 
by Newton, by showing the extent to which they may be applied in 
the solution of problems ; he has also endeavoured to give assistance 
to 1 the student zuho is engaged in the study of the higher branches of 
mathematics, by representing, in a geometrical form several of the 
processes employed in the Differential and Integral Calculus, and in 
the analytical investigates of Dynamics. 
AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON CURVE TRACING. 

8vo. 1 2s. 

The author has zvritten this book under the conviction that the skill 
and power of the young mathematical student, in order w be 
thoroughly available afterwards, ought to be developed in all possible 
directions. The subject which he has chosen presents so many faces, 
pointing in 'directions towards which the mind of the intended 
mathematician has to radiate, that it zvould be difficult to find 
another zvhich, with a very limited extent of reading, combines, to 
the same extent, so many valuable hints of methods of calculations 
to be employed hereafter, with so much pleasure in its present use. 
In order to understand the work it is not necessary to have much 
knowledge of zvhat is called Higher Algebra, nor of Algebraical 
Geometry of a higher kind than that zvhich simply relates to the 
' i: Conic Sections. From the study of a zvork like this, it is beiiezed 
that the student will derive many advantages. Especially he will 
become skilled in making correct approximations to the values of 
quantities, which cannot be found exactly, .to -any degree of accuracy 
zvhich may be required. 

Frost and Woistenholme. — a TREATISE ON SOLID 

GEOMETRY. By Percival Frost, M.A., and the Rev. J. 

Wolstenholme, M.A., Fellow and Assistant Tutor of Christ's 

College. 8vo. cloth. \Zs. 

Intending to make the subject accessible, at least in the earlier porti mt, 
to all classes of students, the authors have endeavoured to explain 
completely all the processes which are most useful in dealing with 
ordinary theorems and problems, thus directing the student to the 
selection of methods zvhich are best adapted to the exigencies of each 
problem. In the more dififiadt portions of the subject, they- have 
:o>i:idered themselves to be addressing a higher class of students ; 



MA THEM A TICS. 



and they have there tried to lay a good foundation on which to 
build, if any reader should wish to pursue the science beyond the 
limits to which the work extends. 

Godfray. — Works by Hugh Godfray, M.A., Mathematical 
Lecturer at Pembroke College, Cambridge : — 

A TREATISE ON ASTRONOMY, for the Use of Colleges and 
Schools. Svo. cloth. 12s. 6d. 

This book embraces all those branches of Astronomy which have, from 
time to time, been recommended by the Cambridge Board of Mathe- 
matical Studies : but by far the larger and easier portion, adapted 
to the first three days of the Examination for Honours, may be read 
by the more advanced pupils in many of our schools. The author's 
aim has been to convey clear and distinct ideas of the celestial phe- 
nomena. "It is a working book" says the Guardian, "taking 
Astronomy in its proper place in the Mathematical Sciences. . . . 
It is a book which is not likely to be got up unintelligently." 

AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON THE LUNAR 
THEORY, with a Brief Sketch of the Problem up to the time of 
Newton. Second Edition, revised. Crown 8vo. cloth. $s. 6d. 

These pages will, it is hoped, form an introduction to more recondite 
works. Dijjicidties have been discussed at considerable length. The 
selection of the method followed with regard to analytical solutions, 
which is the same as that of Airy, Herschel, etc. , was made on 
account of its simplicity ; it is, moreover, the' method which has 
obtained in the University of Cambridge. "As an elementary 
treatise and introduction to the subject, we think it may justly claim 
to supersede all former ones.'" — London, Edinburgh, and Dublin 
Phil. Magazine. 

Green (George).— mathematical papers of the 

LATE GEORGE GREEN, Fellow of Gonville and Caius 

College, Cambridge. Edited' by N. M. Ferrers, M.A., Fellow 

and Tutor of Gonville and Caius College. 8vo. 15^. 

The publication of this book may be opportune at present, as several 

of the subjects with which they are directly or indirectly concerned 

have recently been introduced into the course of mathematical 

study at Camb?'idge. They have also an interest as being the work 

of an almost entirely self-taught mathematical genius , The Papers 



io SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 

comprise the following: — An Essay on the application of Mathe- 
matical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism — 
On the Laws of the Equilibrium of Fluids analogous to the Electric 
Fluid — On the Dctej'mination of the Attractions of Ellipsoids of 
variable Densities — On the Motion of Waves in a variable Canal 
of small depth and zvidth — On the Reflection and Refraction of 
Sound— On the Reflection and Refraction of Light at the Common 
Surface of two No n- Crystallized Media — On the Propagation of 
Light in Crystallized Media — Researches on the Vibrations of Pen- 
dulums in Fluid Media. "It has been for some ti?ne recognized 
that Greeris writings are amongst the most valuable mathematical 
productions zve possess. " — Athenaeum. 

Hemming. — an elementary treatise on the 

DIFFERENTIAL AND INTEGRAL CALCULUS. For the 
Use of Colleges and Schools. By G. W. Hemming, M.A., 
Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. Second Edition, with 
Corrections and Additions. 8vo. cloth. gs. 

" There is no book in comtnon use from zvhich so clear and exact a 
knowledge of the principles of the Calculus can be so readily ob- 
tained.'''' — Literary Gazette. 

Jackson.— GEOMETRICAL CONIC- SECTIONS. An Ele- 
mentary Treatise in which the Conic Sections are defined as the 
Plane Sections of a Cone, and treated by the Method of Projections. 
By J. Stuart Jackson, M. A., late Fellow of Gonville and Caius 
College. Crown 8vo. 45*. 6d. 

This work has been zvritten with a view to give the student the benefit 
of the Method of Projections as applied to the Ellipse and Hyper- 
bola. When this method is admitted into the treatment of Conic 
Sections there are many reasons why they should be defined, not 
with reference to the focus and directrix, but according to the 
original definition from which they have their name, as Plane 
Sections of a Cone. This method is calculated to produce a material 
simplification in the treatment of these curves and to make the proof 
of their properties more easily understood in the first instance and 
more easily remembered. It is also a powerful instrument in the 
solution of a large class of problems relating to these curves. 



MA THEM A TICS. 1 1 



Morgan.— A COLLECTION OF PROBLEMS AND EXAM- 
PLES IN MATHEMATICS. With Answers. By H. A. 
Morgan, M.A., Sadlerian and Mathematical Lecturer of Jesus 
College, Cambridge. Crown 8vo. cloth. 6s. 6d. 

This book contains a number of problems, chiefly elementary, in the 
Mathematical subjects usually read at Cambridge. They have been 
selected from the Papers set during late years at Jesus College. Very 
few of them are to be met with in other collections, and by far the 
larger number are due to some of the most distinguished Mathe- 
maticians in the University. 



Newton's Principia. — 4 to. cloth. 31J. 6d. 

It is a sufficient guarantee of the reliability of this complete edition of 
Newton's Principia that it has been printed for and under the care 
of Professor Sir William Tho?fison and Professor Blackburn, of 
Glasgow University. The foil caving notice is prefixed : — ' ' Finding 
that all the editions of the Principia are now out of print, we have 
been induced to reprint Newton's last edition [of 1 726] without note 
or comment, only introducing the ' Corrigenda ' of the old copy and 
correcting typographical errors.'''' The book is of a handsome size, 
with large type, fine thick paper, and cleanly-cut figures, and is 
the only recent edition containing the whole of Newton's great 
work. 



Parkinson. — Works by S. Parkinson, D.D., F.R.S., Fellow 
and Tutor of St. John's College, Cambridge : — 

AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON MECHANICS. For the 
Use of the Junior Classes at the University and the Higher Classes 
in Schools. With a Collection of Examples. Fourth Edition, 
revised. Crown 8vo. cloth. 9^. 6d. 

In preparing a fourth edition of this work the author has kept the 
same object in view as he had in the former editions — namely, to in- 
clude in it such portions of Theoretical Mechanics as can be con- 
veniently investigated without the use of the Differential Calculus, 
and so render it suitable as a manual for the junior classes in the 
University and the higher classes in Schools. With one or two short 
exceptions, the student is not presumed to require a knowledge of any 



12 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 



Parkinson — continued. 

branches of Mathematics beyond the elements of Algebra, Geometry, 
and Trigonometry. Several additional propositions have been in- 
corporated in the work for the purpose of rendering it more complete, 
and the collection of Examples and Problems has been largely in- 
creased. 

A TREATISE ON OPTICS. Third Edition, revised and en- 
larged. Crown 8vo. cloth, icw. 6d. 

A collection of Examples and Problems has been appended to this work, 
which are sufficiently numerous and varied in character to afford 
useful exercise for the student. For the greater part of them, re- 
course has been had to the Examination Papers set in the University 
and the several Colleges during the last twenty years. 

Phear. — ELEMENTARY HYDROSTATICS. With Numerous 
Examples. By J. B. Phear,- M.A., Fellow and late Assistant 
Tutor of Clare College, Cambridge. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 
cloth. 5-r. 6d. 

This edition has been carefully revised throughout, and many ne-jju 
Illustrations and Examples added, which it is hoped will increase 
its usefidness to students at the Universities and in Schools. In ac- 
cordance with suggestions from many engaged in tuition, answers to 
all the Examples have been given at the end of the book. 

Pratt. — A TREATISE ON ATTRACTIONS, LAPLACE'S 
FUNCTIONS, AND THE FIGURE OF THE EARTH. 
By John H. Pratt, M.A., Archdeacon of Calcutta, Author of 
"The Mathematical Principles of Mechanical Philosophy. " Fourth 
Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth. 6s. 6d. 

The author's chief design in this treatise is to give an anstver to the 
question, ' ' Fas the Earth acquired its present form from being 
originally in a fluid state ?" This edition is a complete revision of 
thefor?ner ones. 

Puckle. — AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON CONIC SEC- 
TIONS AND ALGEBRAIC GEOMETRY. With numerous 



MA THE MA TICS. 1 3 

Examples and Hints for their Solution ; especially designed for the 
Use of Beginners. By G. H. Puckle, M.A. New Edition, 
revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo. cloth. Js. 6d. 

This work is recommended by the Syndicate of the Cambridge Local 
Examinations. The Athenaeum says the author '"''displays an 
intimate acquaintance with the difficulties likely to be felt, together 
with a singular aptitude in removing them" 

Routh. — AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON THE DYNA- 
MICS OF THE SYSTEM OF RIGID BODIES. With 
numerous Examples. By Edward John Routh, M.A., late 
Fellow and Assistant Tutor of St. Peter's College, Cambridge ; 
Examiner in the University of London. Second Edition, enlarged. 
Crown 8vo. cloth. 14^. 

In this edition the author has made several aaditions to each chapter: 
he has tried, even at the risk of some little repetition, to make each 
chapter, as far as possible, complete in itself, so that all that relates 
to any one part of the subject may be found in the same place. This 
arrange77ient will enable every student to select his own order in 
which to read the subject. The Examples which will be found at 
the end of each chapter have been chiefly selected from the Examina- 
tion Papers which have been set in the Unive?sity and the Colleges 
in the last few years. 

Smith's (Barnard) Works. — See Educational Cata- 
logue, 

Snowball. — the elements of plane and spheri- 
cal TRIGONOMETRY ; with the Construction and Use of 
Tables of Logarithms. By J. C. Snowball, M.A. Tenth 
Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth. *js. 6d. 

In preparing the present edition for the press, the text has been sub- 
jected to a careful revision ; the proofs of some of the more import- 
ant propositions have been rendered 7nore strict and general ; and 
a considerable addition of more than two hundred examples, taken 
principally from the questions set of late years in the public exa?ni- 
nations of the University and of individual Colleges, has been made 
to the collection of Examples and Problems for practice. 



14 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 

Tait and Steele. — dynamics of a particle, with 

numerous Examples. By Professor Tait and Mr. Steele. New 
Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth. ias\ 6d. 

In this treatise will be found all the ordinary propositions, connected 
with the Dynamics of Particles, which can be conveniently deducea 
without the use of D 1 Alemberf s Principle. Throughout the book 
will be found a number of illustrative examples introduced in the 
text, and for the most part completely worked out ; others with occa- 
sional solutions or hints to assist the student are appended to each 
chapter. For by far the greater portion of these, the Cambridge 
Senate-House and College Examination Papers have been applied to. 

Taylor. — GEOMETRICAL CONICS ; including An harmonic 
Ratio and Projection, with numerous Examples. By C. Taylor, 
B.A., Scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge. Crown 8vo. 
cloth. fs. 6d. 

This work contains elementary proofs of the prificipal properties of 
Conic Sections, together with chapters on Projection and Anharmonic 
Ratio. 

Todhunter. — Works by I. Todhunter, M.A., F.R.S., of 

St. John's College, Cambridge : — 

"Perspicuous language, vigorous investigations, scrutiny of difficulties, 
and methodical treatment, characterize Mr. Todhunter s works." — 
Civil Engineer. 

THE ELEMENTS OF EUCLID; MENSURATION FOR 
BEGINNERS ; ALGEBRA FOR BEGINNERS ; TRIGO- 
NOMETRY FOR BEGINNERS; MECHANICS FOR 
BEGINNERS. — See Educational Catalogue. 

ALGEBRA. For the Use of Colleges and Schools. Sixth Edition. 
Crown 8vo. cloth. Js. 6d. 

This work contains all the propositions which are usually included in 
elementary treatises on Algebra, and a large number of Examples 
for Exercise. The author has sought to render the work easily in- 
telligible to students, without impairing the accuracy of the de7non- 
strations, or contracting the limits of the subject. The Examples, 
about Sixteen hundred and fifty in number, have been selected with 



MA THEM A TICS. 1 5 



Todhunter (I.)— continued. 

a view to illustrate every part of the subject. The work will be 
found peculiarly adapted to the wants of students who are without 
the aid of a teacher. The Answers to the Examples, with hints 
for the solution of some in which assistance may be needed, are 
given at the end of the book. In the present edition two New 
Chapters and Three hundred miscellaneous Examples have been 
added. "It has merits which unquestionably place it first in the 
class to which it belongs.'''' — Educator. 

KEY TO ALGEBRA FOR THE USE OF COLLEGES AND 
SCHOOLS. Crown 8vo. iar. 6d. 

AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON THE THEORY OF 
EQUATIONS. Second Edition, revised. Crown 8vo. cloth. 
Js. 6d. 

This treatise contains all the propositions which are usually included 
in elementary treatises on the theory of Equations, together with 
Examples for exercise. These have been selected from the College 
and University Examination Papers, and the results have been 
given when it appeared necessary. In order to exhibit a compre- 
hensive viezv of the subject, the treatise includes investigations which 
are not found in all the preceding elementary treatises, and also 
some investigations which are not to be found in any of them. For 
the second edition the work has been revised and some additions 
have been made, the most i?nportant being an account of the 
Researches of Professor Sylvester respecting Newton' s Rule. "A 
thoroughly trustworthy , complete, and yet not too elaborate treatise.''' 
— Philosophical Magazine. 

PLANE TRIGONOMETRY. For Schools and Colleges. Fourth 
Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth. 5.?. 

The design of this work has been to render the subject intelligible 
to beginners, and at the same time to afford the student the oppor- 
tunity of obtaining all the information which he will require on 
this branch of Mathematics. Each chapter is followed by a set 
of Exa7nples : those which a7-e entitled Miscellaneous Examples, 
together with a few in some of the other sets, may be advantageously 
reserved by the student for exercise after he_ has made some progress 
in the subject. In the Second Edition the hints for the solution of 
the Examples have been considerably increased. 



SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE 



Todhuilter (I.)— continued. 

A TREATISE ON SPHERICAL TRIGONOMETRY. Third 

Edition, enlarged. Crown 8vo. cloth. 4s. 6d. 

The present work is constructed on the same plan as the treatise on 
Plane Trigonometry, to which it is intended as a sequel. In the 
account of Napier's Rules of circular parts, an explanation has 
been given of a method of proof devised by Napier, which seems to 
have been overlooked by most modem writers on the subject. Con- 
siderable labour has been bestowed on the text in order to render it 
comprehensive and accurate, and the Examples (selected chiefly 
from College Examination Papers) have all been carefully verified. 
11 For educational purposes this work seems to be superior to any 
others on the subject. " — Critic. 

PLANE CO-ORDINATE GEOMETRY, as applied to the Straight 
Line and the Conic Sections. With numerous Examples. Fourth 
Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown Svo. cloth. *]s. 6d. 

The author has here endeavoured to exhibit the subject in a simple 
manner for the benefit of beginners, and at the same time to include 
in one volume all that students usually require. In addition, 
therefore, to the propositions which have always appeared in such 
treatises, he has introduced the methods of abridged notation, 
which are of more recent origin : these methods, which are of a 
less elementary character than the rest of the work, are placed in 
separate chapters, and may be omitted by the student at first. 

A TREATISE ON THE DIFFERENTIAL CALCULUS. 
With numerous Examples. Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth. 
10s. 6d. 

The author has endeavoured in the present %vork to exhibit a compre- 
hensive view of the Differential Calculus on the method of limits. 
In the more elementary portions he has entered into considerable 
detail in the explanations, with the hope that a reader who is without 
the assistance of a tutor ??iay be enabled to acquire a competent ac- 
quaintance with the subject. The method adopted is that of Dif- 
ferential Coefficients. To the different chapters are appended 
Exaniples sufficiently numerous to render another book unnecessary ; 
these Examples being mostly selected from College Examination 
Papers. This and the following work have been translated into 



MATHEMATICS. i 7 



Todhunter (I.)— continued. 

Italian by Professor Battaglini, who in his Preface speaks thus : — 
" In publishing this translation of the Differential and Integral 
Calculus of Mr. Todhunter, we have had no other object than to 
add to the books which are in the hands of the students of our Uni- 
versities, a work remarkable for the clearness of the exposition, the 
rigour of the demonstrations, the just proportion in the parts, and 
the rich store of examples which offer a large field for useful 
exercise.'''' 

A TREATISE ON THE INTEGRAL CALCULUS AND ITS 
APPLICATIONS. With numerous Examples. Third Edition, 
revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo. cloth. 10s. 6d. 
This is designed as a zvork at once elementary and complete, adapted 
for the use of beginners, and sufficient for the zvants of advanced 
students. In the selection of the propositions, and in the mode yf 
establishing them, it has been sought to exhibit the principles clearly, 
and to illustrate all their most important results. The process of 
summation has been repeatedly brought forward, witli the view 
of securing the attention of the student to the notions which form the 
true foundation of the Calculus itself as well as of its most 
valuable applications. Every attempt has been made to explain those 
difficulties which usually perplex beginners, especially with reference 
to the limits of integrations. A new method has been adopted in 
regard to the transformation of multiple integrals. The last chapter 
deals with the Calculus of Variations. A large collection of Exer- 
cises, selected from College Examination Papers, has been appended 
to the several chapters. 

EXAMPLES OF ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY OF THREE 
DIMENSIONS. Third Edition, revised. Crown 8vo. cloth. 4s. 

A TREATISE ON ANALYTICAL STATICS. With numerous 
Examples. Third Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo. 
cloth, ioj-. 6d. 

In this work on Statics (treating of the laws of the equilibrium of 
bodies) will be found all the propositions which usually appear in 
treatises on Theoretical Statics. To the different chapters Examples 
are appended, zvhich have been principally selected from University 
Examination Papers. In the Third Edition many additions have 
been made, in order to illustrate the application of the principles of 
the subject to the solution of problems. 



18 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 

Todhunter (I.)— continued. 
A HISTORY OF THE MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF 
PROBABILITY, from the Time of Pascal to that of Laplace. 
8vo. . i8j. 

The subject of this work has high claims to consideration on account 
of the subtle problems which it involves, the valuable contributions 
to analysis which it has produced, its important practical applica- 
tions, and the e7ninence of those who have cultivated it ; nearly 
every great mathetnatician within the range of a century and 
a half comes under consideration in the course of the history. The 
author has endeavoured to be quite accurate in his statements, and 
to reproduce the essential elements of the original works which he 
has analysed. Besides being a history, the work may claim the title 
of a comprehensive treatise on the Theory of Probability, for it 
assumes in the reader only so much knozuledge as can be gamed from 
an elementary book on Algebra, and introduces him to almost every 
process and every special problem zvhich the literature of the subject 
can furnish. 

RESEARCHES IN THE CALCULUS OF VARIATIONS, 
Principally on the Theory of Discontinuous Solutions : An Essay 
to which the Adams' Prize was awarded in the University of 
Cambridge in 187 1. 8vo. 6s. 

The subject of this Essay was prescribed in the following terms by the 
Examiners : — "A determination of the circumstances under which 
discontinuity of any kind presents itself in the solution of a problem 
of maximum or 7?iinimum in the Calculus of Variations, and 
applications to particular instances. It is expected that the discus- 
sion of the instances should be exemplified as far as possible geo- 
metrically, and that attention be especially directed to cases of real or 
supposed failure of the Calculus." While the Essay is thus mainly 
devoted to the consideration of discontinuous solutions, various 
other questions in the Calculus of Variations are examined and 
elucidated ; and the author hopes he has definitely co7itributed to the 
extension and improvement of our kncncledge of this refined depart- 
ment of analysis. 

A HISTORY OF THE MATHEMATICAL THEORIES OF 
ATTRACTION, and the Figure of the Earth, from the time of 
Newton to that of Laplace. Two vols. $ve. 24s. 



MATHEMATICS. 



19 



Wilson (W. P.)— A TREATISE ON DYNAMICS. By 
W. P. Wilson, M.A., Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, 
and Professor of Mathematics in Queen's College, Belfast. 8vo. 
gs. 6d. 

Wolstenholme. — A BOOK OF MATHEMATICAL 
PROBLEMS, on Subjects included in the Cambridge Course. 
By Joseph Wolstenholme, Fellow of Christ's College, some 
time Fellow of St. John's College, and lately Lecturer in Mathe- 
matics at Christ's College. Crown 8vo. cloth. Ss. 6d. 

Contents : — Geometry (Euclid) — Algebra — Plane Trigonometry — 
Geomet?-ical Conic Sections — Analytical Conic Sections — Theory of 
Equations — Differential Calculus — Integral Calculus — Solid Geo- 
metry — Statics — Elementary Dynamics — Newton — Dynamics of a 
Point — Dynamics of a Rigid Body — Hydrostatics — Geometrical 
Optics — Spherical Trigonometry and Plane Astronomy. In some 
cases the author has prefixed to certain classes of problems frag- 
mentary notes on the mathematical subjects to which they relate. 
"Judicious, symmetrical, and well arranged.'''' — Guardian. 



2o SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 

Airy (G. B.)— POPULAR ASTRONOMY. With Illustrations. 
By Sir G. B. Airy, K.C.B., Astronomer Royal. Seventh and 
cheaper Edition. i8mo. cloth. 4.S. 6d. 

This work consists of Six Lectures, which are intended ' ' to explain 
to intelligent persons the principles on which the instruments of an 
Observatory are constructed (omitting all details, so far as they are 
merely subsidiary), and the principles on which the observations 
made with these instruments are treated for deduction of the distances 
and weights of the bodies of the Solar System, and of a few stars, 
omitting all minutice of formula, and all troublesome details of 
calculation." The speciality of this volu??ie is the direct reference of 
every step to the Observatory, and the full description of the methods 
and instruments of observation. 

Bastian. — Works by H. Charlton Bastian, M.D., F.R.S., 
Professor of Pathological Anatomy in University College, London, 
etc. : — 

THE MODES OF ORIGIN OF LOWEST ORGANISMS : 
Including a Discussion of the Experiments of M. Pasteur, and a 
Reply to some Statements by Professors Huxley and Tyndall. 
Crown 8vo. 4.S. 6d. 

The present volume contains a fragment of the evidence which will be 
embodied in a much larger work — now almost completed — relating to 
the nature and origin of living matter, and in favour of what is 
termed the Physical Doctrine of Life. ' ' Lt is a work worthy of the 
highest respect, and places its author in the very first class of scientific 
physicians. . . . It would be difficult to name an instance in tvhich 
skill, knowledge, perseverance, and great reasoning power have been 
more happily applied to the investigation of a complex biological 
problem." — British Medical Journal. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 2 i 

Bastian (H. C.)— continued. 
THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE : Being some Account of the 
Nature, Modes of Origin, and Transformations of Lower Organ- 
isms. In Two Volumes. With upwards of ioo Illustrations, 
Crown 8vo. 28,s\ 

These volumes contain the results of several years' 1 investigation on the 
Origin of Life, and it was only after the author had proceeded 
some length with his observations and experiments that he was 
compelled to change the opinions he started with for those announced 
in the present work — the most important of which is that in favour 
of " spontaneoits generation " — the theory that life has never ceased 
to be actually originated. The First Part of the work is intended 
to show the general reader, more especially, that the logical conse- 
quences of the now commonly accepted doctrines concerning tie 
" Conservation of Energy " and the " Correlation of the Vital and 
Physical Forces " are wholly favourable to the possibility of the in- 
dependent origin of "living" matter. It also contains a view of 
the ' ' Cellular Theory of Organisation. " In the Second Part of 
the work, under the head " Archebiosis," the qtiestion as to the 
present occurreiice or non-occurrence of " spontaneous generation " 
is considered. ' ' It is a book that cannot be ignored, and must 
inevitably lead to renewed discussions and repeated observations, and 
through these to the establishment of truth." — A. R. Wallace in 
Nature. 

Birks (T. R.)— ON MATTER AND ETHER £or, The Secret 
Laws of Physical Change. By Thomas Rawson Birks, M.A., 
Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Cambridge. 
Crown 8vo. $s. 6d. 

The author believes that the hypothesis of the existence of besides matter, 
a luminous ether, of immense elastic force, supplies the true and suf- 
ficient key to the remaining secrets of inorganic matter, of the phe- 
nomena of light, electricity, etc. In this treatise the author endea- 
vours first to form a clear and definite conception with regard to the 
real nature both of matter and ether, and the laws of mutual action 
which must be supposed to exist between them. He then endeavours 
to trace out the main consequences of the fundamental hypothesis, 
and their correspondence with the known phenomena of physical 
change. 



22 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 

Blanford (W. T.)— geology and zoology of 

ABYSSINIA. By W. T. Blanford. 8vo. lis. 

This work contains an account of the Geological and Zoological Obser- 
vations made by the author in Abyssinia, when accompanying the 
British Army on its march to Magdala and back in 1 868, and 
during a short journey in Northern Abyssinia, after the departure 
of the troops. Part I. Personal Narrative ; Part II. Geology ; 
Part III Zoology. With Coloured Illustrations and Geological 
Map. "The result of his labours," the Academy says, "is an 
important contribution to the natural history of the country." 

Clodd.— THE CHILDHOOD OF THE WORLD : a Simple 
Account of Man in Early Times. By Edward Clodd, F.R.A.S. 
Second Edition. Globe 8vo. 3s. 

" Likely, ive think, to prove acceptable to a large and growing class of 
readers."— Vail Mall Gazette. 

Professor Max Muller, in a letter to the Author, says : " I read 
your book with great pleasure. I have no doubt it will do good, 
and I hope you will continue your work. Nothing spoils our tempei- 
so much as having to unlearn in youth, manhood, and even old 
age, so many things which we zvere taught as childrejt. A book 
like yours will prepare afar better soil in the child's mind, and I 
was delighted to have it to read to my children." 

Cooke (Josiah P., Jun.)— first principles of 

CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHY. By Josiah P. Cooke, Jun., 
Ervine Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy in Harvard College. 
Crown 8vo. 12s. 

The object of the author in this book is to present the philosophy of 
Chemistry in such a form that it can be made with profit the subject 
of College recitations, and furnish the teacher with the means of 
testing the student's faithfulness and ability. With this view the 
subject has been developed in a logical order, and the principles of 
the science are taught independently of the experimental evidence on 
'a hick they rest. 

Cooke (M. C.)— HANDBOOK OF BRITISH FUNGI, 

with full descriptions of all the Species, and Illustrations of the 
Genera. By M. C. Cooke, M.A. Two vols, crown 8vo. 245-. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 23 

During the thirty-five years that have elapsed since the appearance of 
the last complete Mycologic Flora no attempt has been made to revise 
it, to incorporate species since discovered, and to bring it up to the 
standard of modern science. No apology, therefore, is necessary for 
the present effort, since all will admit that the want of such a 
manual has long been felt, and this work makes its appearance 
under the advantage that it seeks to occupy a place which has long 
been vacant. No effort has been spared to make the work worthy 
of confidence, and, by the publication of an occasional supplement, 
it is hoped to maintain it for many years as the "Handbook" 
for every student of British Fungi. Appended is a complete alpha- 
betical Index of all the divisions and subdivisions of the Fungi 
noticed in the text. The book contains 400 figures. " Will main- 
tain its place as the standard English book, on the subject of which 
it treats, for many years to come." — Standard. 

Dawkins,— CAVE-HUNTING: Researches on the Evidence of 
Caves respecting the Early Inhabitants of Europe. By W. Boyd 
Dawkins, F.R.S. Illustrated. 8vo. [In the Press. 

Dawson (J. W.) — ACADIAN GEOLOGY. The Geologic 
Structure, Organic Remains, and Mineral Resources of Nova 
Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. By John 
William Dawson, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. , F.G.S., Principal and 
Vice-Chaucellor of M'Gill College and University, Montreal, &c. 
Second Edition, revised and enlarged. With a Geological Map 
and numerous Illustrations. 8vo. iSs. 

The object of the first edition of this work was to place within the 
reach of the people of the districts to which it relates, a popular 
account of the more recent discoveries in the geology and mineral 
resources of their country, and at the same time to give to geologists 
in other countries a connected view of the structure of a very in- 
teresting portion of the American Continent, in its relation to 
general and theoretical Geology. In the present edition, it is hoped this 
design is still more completely fulfilled, with reference to the present 
more advanced condition of knozvledge. The author has endea- 
voured to convey a knowledge of the structure and fossils of the 
region in such a manner as to be intelligible to ordinary readers, 
and has devoted much attention to all questions relating to the nature 
and present or prospective value of deposits of useful minerals. 



24 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 

Besides a large coloured Geological Map of the district, the work 
is illustrated by upwards of 260 cuts of sections, fossils, animals, 
etc. " The book will doubtless find a place hi the library, not only 
of the scientific geologist, but also of all who are desirous of the in- 
dustrial progress and commercial prosperity of the Acadian pro- 
vinces. " — Mining Journal. ' ' A style at once popular and scientific. 
. . . A valuable addition to our store of geological knowledge.'''' — 
Guardian. 

Flower (W. H.)— AN INTRODUCTION TO THE OSTE- 
OLOGY OF THE MAMMALIA. Being the substance of the 
Course of Lectures delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons 
of England in 1870. By W. H. Flower, F.R.S., F.R.C.S., 
Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology. 
With numerous Illustrations. Globe 8vo. Js. 6d. 

Although the present work^ contains the substance of a Course of Lectures y 
the form has been changed, so as the better to adapt it as a hand- 
book for students. Theoretical viezvs have been almost entirely ex- 
cluded: and while it is impossible in a scientific treatise to avoid the 
employnient of technical terms, it has been the author's endeavour, to 
use no more than absolutely necessary, and to exercise due care in 
selecting only those that seem most appropriate, or which have re- 
ceived the sanction of general adoption. With a very few excep- 
tions the illustrations have been drawn expressly for this work from 
specimens in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. 

Gallon. — Works by Francis Galton, F.R.S. :— 

METEOROGRAPHICA, or Methods of Mapping the Weather. 
Illustrated by upwards of 600 Printed Lithographic Diagrams. 
4to. gs. 

As Mr. Gallon entertains strong viezvs on the necessity of Meteorolo- 
gical Charts and Maps, he determined, as a practical proof of what 
could be done, to chart the entire area of Europe, so far as meteorological 
stations extend, during one month, viz. the month of December, 1861. 
Mr. Galton got his data from authorities in every part of Britain 
and the Continent, and on the basis of these has here drawn up 
nearly a hundred different Maps and Charts, showing the state of 
the weather all over Europe during the above period. ' ' If the 
various Governments and scientific bodies would perform for the 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 25 



Gait on — continued. 

whole zvorldfor two or three years what, at a great cost and labour, 
Mr. Gallon has done for a part of Europe for one month, Meteoro- 
logy would soon cease to be made a joke of." — Spectator. 

HEREDITARY GENIUS : An Inquiry into its Laws and Con- 
sequences. Demy 8vo. 12s. 

" I propose," the author says, "to show in this book that a man's 
natural abilities are derived by inheritance, under exactly the same 
li7Jtitations as are the form and physical features of the whole organic 
world. I shall show that social agencies of an ordinary character, 
whose influences are little suspected, are at this moment working 
towards the degradation of human nature, and that others are 
working towards its improvement. The general plan of my argu- 
ment is to shoza that high reputation is a pretty accurate test of high 
ability ; next, to discuss the relationships of a large body of fairly 
eminent men, and to obtain from these a general survey of the laws 
of heredity in respect of genius. Then will follow a short chapter, 
by zvay of comparison, on the hereditary transmission of physical 
gifts, as deduced from the relationships of certain classes of oarsmen 
and wrestlers. Lastly, I shall collate my results and draw conclu- 
sions." The Times calls it "a most able and most interesting 
book;" and 'Mr. Darwin, in his " Descent of Man" (vol. i. p. ill,), 
says, ' ' We knozv, through the admirable labours of Mr. Gallon, 
that Genius tends to be inherited" 



Geikie (A.)— SCENERY OF SCOTLAND, Viewed in Connec- 
tion with its Physical Geography. With Illustrations and a new 
Geological Map. By Archibald Geikie, Professor of Geology 
in the University of Edinburgh. Crown 8vo. \os. 6d. 

i ' We can confidently recommend Mr. Geikie f s zvork to those who wish 
to look below the surface and read the physical history of the Scenery 
of Scotland by the light of modern science." — Saturday Review. 
" Amusing, picturesque, and instructive." — Times. 

Guillemin. — THE FORCES OF NATURE: A Popular Intro- 
duction to the Study of Physical Phenomena. By Am^dbe 
Guillemin. Translated from the French by Mrs. Norman 
Lockyer ; and Edited, with Additions and Notes, by J. Norman 



26 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 

Lockyer, F.R.S. Illustrated by n Coloured Plates and 455 
Woodcuts. Second Edition. Imperial 8vo. cloth, extra gilt. 



M. Guillemin is already well known in this country as a most success- 
ful populariser of the results of accurate scientific research, his 
works, while eloquent, intelligible, and interesting to the general 
reader, being thoroughly trustworthy and up to date. The present 
work consists of Seven Books, each divided into a nw7iber of 
Chapters, the Books treating respectively of Gravity, Sound. 
Light, Heat, Magnetism, Electricity, and Atmospheric Meteors. 
The programme of the work has not been confined to a simple 
explanation of the facts : but an attempt has been made to grasp 
their relative bearings, or, in other words, their laws, and that 
too without taking for granted that the reader is acquainted 
with mathematics. " The author's aim has been to smooth the way 
for those who desire to extend their studies, and likewise to present 
to general readers a sufficiently exact and just idea of this branch of 
science." — Daily News. " Translator and Editor have done 
justice to their trust. The text has all the force andflotv of original 
writing, combining faithfulness to the author s meaning with 
purity and independence in regard to idiom ; while the historical 
precision and accuracy pervading the tvork throughout, speak of the 
watchful editorial supervision which has been given to every scientific 
detail. Nothing can well exceed the clearness and delicacy 0/ the 
illustrative woodcuts, borrowed from the French edition, or the 
purity and chromatic truth of the coloured plates. Altogether, the 
work may be said to have no parallel, either in point of fulness or 
attraction, as a popular manual of physical science. .... 
What we feel, however, bound to say, and tvhat we say with 
pleasure, is, that among works of its class no publication can stand 
comparison either in literary completeness or in artistic grace with 
it." — Saturday Review. 



Henslow.— THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION OF LIVING 
THINGS, and the Principles of Evolution applied to Religion 
considered as Illustrative of the Wisdom and Beneficence of the 
Almighty. By the Rev. George Henslow, M.A., F.R.S. 
Crown 8vo. 6s. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 27 

Hooker (Dr.)— THE STUDENT'S FLORA OF THE 
BRITISH ISLANDS. By J. D. Hooker, C.B., F.R.S., 
M.D., D.C.L., Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew. Globe 8vo. 
1 or. bd. 

The object of this work is to supply students and field-botanists with a 
fuller account of the Plants of the British Islands than the manuals 
hitherto in use aim at giving. The Ordinal, Generic, and Specific 
characters have been re-written, and are to a great extent original, 
and drawn from living or dried specimens, or both. ' ' Cannot fail to 
perfectly fulfil the purpose for which it is intended" — Land and 
Water. ' ' Containing the fullest and most accurate manual of the 
kind that has yet appeared." — Pall Mall Gazette. 

Huxley (Professor). — lay SERMONS, ADDRESSES, 
AND REVIEWS. By T. H. Huxley, LL.D., F.R.S. New 
and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. 

Fourteen Discourses on the following subjects: — (1) On the Advisable- 
ness of Improving Natural Knowledge: — (2) Emancipation — 
Black and White : — (3) A Liberal Education, and where to find 
it: — (4) Scientific Education : — (5) On the Educational Value of 
the Natural History Sciences: — (6) On the Study of Zoology: — 
(7) On the Physical Basis of Life: — (8) The Scientific Aspects oj 
Positivism ."—(9) On a Piece of Chalk: — (10) Geological Contem- 
poraneity and Persistent Types of Life : — ( 1 1 ) Geological Reform : — 
(12) The Origin of Species .*— ( 13) Criticisms on the "Origin of 
Species:'''' — (14) On Descartes' "Discourse touching the Method of 
using One 's Reason rightly and of seeking Scientific Truth.''' 1 The 
momentous influence exercised by Mr. Huxley 's writings on physical, 
mental, and social science is universally ac knoivl edged : his works 
must be studied by all who would comprehend the various drifts of 
modern thought. 

ESSAYS SELECTED FROM LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, 
AND REVIEWS. Crown 8vo. is. 

This volume includes Numbers I, 3, 4, 7, 8, and 14, of the above. 

CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 

These " Critiques and Addresses," like the "Lay Sermons," etc., pub- 
lished three years ago, deal chiefly with educatio7tal, scientific, and 



28 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE, 



Huxley (Professor)— < w *a«»«/'. 

philosophical subjects ; and, in fact, as the author says, "indicate 
the high-water mark of the various tides of occupation by which 1 
have been carried along since the beginning of the year 1870." The 
following is the list of Contents: — I. Administrative Nihilism. 

2. The School Boards : what they can do, and what they may do. 

3. On Medical. Education, 4. Yeast. 5. On the Formation of 
Coal. 6. On Coral and Coral Reefs. 7. Oit the Methods and 
Results of Ethnology. 8. On some Fixed Points in Bi'itish Eth- 
nology. 9. Palceoniology and the. Doctrine of Evolution. 10. 
Biogenesis and A biogenesis. 11. Mr. Darwin' 's Critics. 12. The 
Genealogy of Animals, 13. Bishop Berkely on the Metaphysics of 
Sensation. 



LESSONS IN ELEMENTARY PHYSIOLOGY. With numerous 
Illustrations. New Edition. i8mo. cloth. 4^. 6d. 

This book describes and explains, in a series of graduated lessons, the 
principles of Human Physiology, or the Structure and Functions 
of the Human Body. The first lesson supplies a general view op 
the subject. This is followed by sections on the Vascular or Venous 
System, and the Circulation ; the Blood and the Lymph ; Respira- 
tion : Sources of Loss and of Gain to the Blood ; the Function of 
Alimentation ; Motion and Locomotion ; Sensations and Sensory 
Organs ; the Organ of Sight ; the Coalescence of Sensations with 
one another and with other States of Consciousness ; the Nervous 
System and Innervation ; Histology, or the Minute Structure of 
the Tissues. A Table of Anatomical and Physiological Constants 
is appended. The lessons are fully illustrated by numerous en- 
gravings. The new edition has been thoroughly revised, and a con- 
siderable number of new illustrations added: several of these have 
been taken from the Rabbit, the Sheep, the Dog, and the Frog, in order 
to aid those who attempt to make their knowledge real, by acquiring 
some practical acquaintance with the facts of Anatomy and Physi- 
ology. ' ' Pure gold throughout. " — Guardian. ' ' Unquestionably 
the clearest and most complete elementary treatise on this subject 
that we possess in any language." — Westminster Review. 

Jellet (John H., B.D.) — A TREATISE ON THE 
THEORY OF FRICTION. By John H. Jellet, B.D., 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE, 29 

Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin ; President of the Royal 
Irish Academy. Svo. 8s. 6d. 

The Theory of Frictio?i, considered as a part of Rational Mec/iuriics, 
has not, the author thinks, received the attention which it deserves. 
On this account many students have been probably led to regard 
the discussion of this force as scarcely belonging to Rational 
Mechanics at all ; whereas the theory of friction is as truly a part 
of that subject as the theory of gravitation. The force with which 
this theory is concerned is subject to laws as definite, and as fully 
susceptible of mathematical expression, as the force of gravity. 
This book is taken up with a special investigation of the laws of 
friction; and some of the principles contained in it are believed to 
be here enunciated for the first li?ne. The work consists of eight 
Chapters as follows : — /. Definitions and Principles. II. Equili- 
brium with Frictions. III. Extreme Positions of Equilibrium. 
IV. Movement of a Particle or System of Particles. V. Motion 
of a Solid Body. VI. Necessary and Possible Equilibrium. VII 
Determination of the Actual Value of the Acting Force of Friction. 
VIII. Miscellaneous Problems —\. Problem of the Top. 2. Friction 
Wheels and locomotives. 3. Questions for Exercise. '* The book 
supplies a want which has hitherto existed i?i the science of pure 
mechanics. " — Engineer, 

Jones. — THE OWENS COLLEGE JUNIOR COURSE OF 
PRACTICAL CHEMISTRY. By Francis Jones, Chemical 
Master in the Grammar School, Manchester. With Preface by 
Professor Roscoe. i8mo. with Illustrations, is. 6d. 

Kingsley. — GLAUCUS : OR, THE WONDERS OF THE 
SHORE. By Charles Kingsley, Canon of Westminster. 
New Edition, revised and corrected, with numerous Coloured 
Plates. Crown 8vo. $s. 

Kirchhoff (G.)— RESEARCHES ON THE SOLAR SPEC- 
TRUM, and the Spectra of the Chemical Elements, By G. 
Kirchhoff, Professor of Physics in the University of Heidelberg. 
Second Part. Translated, with the Author's Sanction, from the 
Transactions of the Berlin Academy for 1862, by Henry R. 
Roscoe, B.A., Ph.D., F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in Owens 
College, Manchester. Part II. 4to. $s. , 



3 o SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 

"It is to Kirchhoff we are indebted for by far the best and most accurate 
observations of these phenomena.'''' — Edin. Review. " This memoir 
seems almost indispensable to every Spectriwi observer." — Philo- 
sophical Magazine. 

Lockyer (J. N.) — Works by J. Norman Lockyer, F.R.S.— 
ELEMENTARY LESSONS IN ASTRONOMY. With nu- 
merous Illustrations. New Edition. i8mo. 5^. 6d. 

The author has here aimed to give a connected view of the whole subject, 
and to supply facts, and ideas founded on the facts, to serve as a basis 
for subsequent study and discussion. The chapters treat of the 
Stars and Nebula; ; the Sun; the Solar System ; Apparent Move- 
ments of the Heavenly Bodies ; the Measurement of Time; Light ; 
the Telescope and Spectroscope ; Apparent Places of the Heavenly 
Bodies ; the Real Distances and Dimensions ; Universal Gravitation. 
The most recent Astronomical Discoveries are incorporated. Mr. 
Lockyer 's work supplements that of the Astronomer Royal. "The 
book is full, clear, sound, and zvorthy of attention, not only as a 
popular exposition, but as a scientific ''Index.'''''' — Athenaeum. 
"The most fascinating of elementary books on the Sciences.'''' — 
Nonconformist. 
THE SPECTROSCOPE AND ITS APPLICATIONS. By J. 
Norman Lockyer, F.R.S. With Coloured Plate and numerous 
Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 2 s - &d. 

This forms Volume One <?/"" Nature Series,''' a series of popular 
Scientific Works now in course of publication, consisting of popular 
and instructive works, on particular scientific subjects — Scientific 
Discovery, Applications, History, Biography — by some of the 
most eminent scientific men of the day. They will be so written as 
to be interesting and intelligible even to non-scientific readers. Mr. 
Lockyer 's work in Spectrum Analysis is widely known. In the 
present short treatise will be found an exposition of the principles 
on which Spectrum Analysis rests, a description of the various 
kinds of Spectroscopes, and an account of what has already been 
done with the instrument, as well as of what may yet be done both 
in science and in the industrial art. 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOLAR PHYSICS. With numerous 
Illustrations. Royal 8vo., uniform with Roscoe's " Spectrum 
Analysis," Thompson's "Depths of the Sea," and Ball's "Me- 
chanics."' 3i.r. 6d. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 31 

Macmillan (Rev. Hugh). — For other Works by the same 
Author, see Theological Catalogue. 

HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS ; or, Rambles and Incidents in 
search of Alpine Plants. Crown 8vo. cloth. 6s. 

The aim of this book is to impart a general idea of the origin, cha- 
racter, and distribution of those rare and beautiful Alpine plants 
which occur on the British hills, and which are found almost every- 
where on the lofty mountain chains of Europe, Asia, Africa, and 
America. In the first three chapters the peculiar vegetation of the 
Highland mountains is fully described ; while in the remaining 
chapters this vegetation is traced to its northern cradle in the moun- 
tains of Norway, and to its southern European termination in the 
Alps of Stvitzerland. The information the author has to give is 
conveyed in a setting of personal adventttre. " One of the most 
charming books of its kind ever written." — Literary Churchman. 
" Mr. Af.'s glowing pictures of Scandinavian scenery." — Saturday 
Review. 

FOOT-NOTES FROM THE PAGE OF NATURE. With 
numerous Illustrations, Fcap. 8vo. 5^. 

" Those who have derived pleasure and profit from the study offiozvers 
and ferns — subjects, it is pleasing to find, now everywhere popular 
— by descending lower into the arcana of the vegetable kingdom, 
will find a still more interesting and delightful field of research in 
the objects brought under review in the following pages," — Preface. 
" The naturalist and the botanist will delight in this volume, and 
those who understand little of the scientific parts of the work will 
linger over the mysterious page of nature here unfolded to their 
view." — John Bull. 

Mansfield (C. B.)— A THEORY OF SALTS. A Treatise 
on the Constitution of Bipolar (two-membered) Chemical Com- 
pounds. By the late Charles Blachford Mansfield. Crown 
8vo. 14X. 

il Mansfield," says the editor, ^ wrote this book to defend the prin- 
ciple that the fact of voltaic decomposition a forded the true indi- 
cation, if properly interpreted, of the nature of the saline structure, 
and of the atomicity of the elements that built it up. No chemist 



32 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 

will peruse this book without feeling that he is in the presence of an 
original thinker, whose pages are continually suggestive, even 
though their general argmnent may not be entirely concurrent in 
direction with that of modern chemical thought." 

Miller.— THE ROMANCE OF ASTRONOMY. By R. Kalley 
Miller, M.A., Fellow and Assistant Tutor of St. Peter's Col- 
lege, Cambridge. Crown 8vo. $s. 6d. 

" On the whole, the information contained is of a trustworthy cha- 
racter, and we cordially recommend it to the perusal of those who, 
without being in possession of the knowledge requisite for discussing 
astronomical theories, or the means by which they are arrived at, 
are yet desirous of becoming acquainted with some of the most 
interesting of astronomical conclusions.'''' — Atheriseum. 

Mivart (St. George).— Works by St. George Mivart, F.R.S. 
etc., Lecturer in Comparative Anatomy at St. Mary's Hospital:— 

ON THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. Crown 8vo. Second 
Edition, to which notes have been added in reference and reply to 
Darwin's "Descent of Man." With numerous Illustrations, pp. 
xv. 296. 9s. 

The aim of the author is to support the doctrine that the various 
species have been evolved by ordinary natural laws (for the most 
part unknozvn) controlled by the subordinate action of "natural 
selection," and at the same time to remind some that there is and 
can be absolutely nothing in physical science which forbids them to 
regard those natural laws as acting with the Divine concurrence, 
and in obedience to a creative fiat originally imposed on the primeval 
cosmos, "in the beginning," by its Creator, its Upholder, and its 
Lord. Nearly fifty woodcuts illustrate the letter-press, and a com- 
plete index makes all references extremely easy. Canon Kingsley, 
in his address to the " Devonshire Association," says, " Let me re- 
commend earnestly to you, as a specimen of what can be said on the 
other side, the ' Genesis of Species," 1 by Mr. St. George Mivart, 
F.R.S., a book which I am happy to say has been received elsewhere 
as it has deserved, and, I trust, will be received so among you." 
11 In no work in the English language has this great controversy 
been treated at once with the same broad and vigorous grasp of 
facts, and the same liberal and candid temper." — Saturday Review. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



Mivart (St. George)— continued. 

LESSONS IN ELEMENTARY ANATOMY. With upwards of 
400 Illustrations. i8mo. 6s. 6d. 

This volume is intended to form one of the series of Elementary Class- 
Books of Science, and the Lessons are intended in the first place for 
teachers and for earnest students of both sexes, not already acquainted 
with human anatomy. The author has endeavoured, secondly, by 
certain additions and by the mode of treatment, to fit them for 
students in medicine, and generally for those acquainted with 
human anatomy, but desirous of learning its more significant rela- 
tions to the structure of other animals: the author therefore hopes 
his volume may serve as a hand-book of Human Morphology. 7'he 
book is amply illustrated with carefully drawn tuoodcuts. 

Murphy. — Works by Joseph John Murphy : — 

HABIT AND INTELLIGENCE, in Connection with the Laws of 
Matter and Force : A Series of Scientific Essays. Two Vols. 
Svo. 1 6s. 

The author 's chief purpose in this work has been to state and to dis- 
cuss what he regards as the special and characteristic principles of 
life. The most important part of the work treats of those vital 
principles which belong to the inner domain of life itself, as dis- 
tinguished from the Principles which belong to the border-land 
where life comes into contact with inorganic matter and force. In 
the inner domain of ife zve find two principles, which are^ the 
author believes, coextensive with life and pecttliar to it : these are 
Habit and Intelligence. He has made as full a statement as 
possible of the laws tinder which habits form, disappear, alter under 
altered circumstances, and vary spontaneously. He discusses that 
most important of all questions, whether intelligence is an tiltimate 
fact, incapable of being resolved into any other, or only a resultant 
from the laws of habit. The latter part of the first volume is 
occupied with the discussion of the question of the Origin of Species. 
The first part of the second volume is occupied with an inquiry 
into the process of mental growth and development, and the nature 
of mental intelligence. In the chapter that follows, the author dis- 
cusses the science of history, and the three concluding chapters 
contain some ideas on the classification, the history, and the logic, of 
the sciences. The author 's aim has been to make the subjects treated 
of intelligible to any ordinary intelligent man. " We are pleased 
C 



34 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 

M U r p hy — continued. 

to listen, 1,1 says the Saturday Review, "to a writer who has so firm 
a foothold upon the ground within the scope of his immediate 
survey, and who can enunciate with so much clearness and force 
propositions which come within his grasp." 

THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF FAITH. 8vo. 14*. 

Nature.— A WEEKLY ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL OF 
SCIENCE. Published every Thursday. Price 4^. Monthly 
Parts, is. 4d. and is. Sd. ; Half-yearly Volumes, 10s. 6d. Cases for 
binding Vols. is. 6d. 

" Backed by many of the best names among English philosophers, and 
by a few equally valuable supporters in America and on the Conti- 
nent of Europe.'''' — Saturday Review. " This able and well-edited 
Journal, which posts up the science of the day promptly, and 
promises to be of signal service to students and savants.'" — British 
Quarterly Review, 

Oliver — Works by Daniel Oliver, F.R.S., F.L.S., Professor of 
Botany in University College, London, and Keeper of the Herba- 
rium and Library of the Royal Gardens, Kew : — 

LESSONS IN ELEMENTARY BOTANY. With nearly Two 
Hundred Illustrations. New Edition. i8mo cloth. 4.S. 6d. 

This booh is designed to teach the elements of Botany on Professor 
Henslow s plan of selected Types and by the use of Schedules. The 
earlier chapters, embracing the elements of Structural and Physio- 
logical Botany, introduce us to the methodical study of the Ordinal 
Types. The concluding chapters are entitled, " How to Dry 
Plants " and " Hotv to Describe Plants.''' A valuable Glossary is 
appended to the volume. In the preparation of this work free use 
has been made of the manuscript materials of the late Professor 
Henslow. 

FIRST BOOK OF INDIAN BOTANY. With numerous 
Illustrations. Extra fcap. 8vo. 6s. 6d, 

This manual is, in substance, the author 's ' ' Lessons in Elementary 
Botany " adapted for use in India. In preparing it he has had in 
view the want, often felt, of some handy resume of Indian Botany, 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



35 



which might be serviceable not only to residents of India, but also 
to anyone about to proceed thither, desirous of getting some pre- 
liminary idea of the botany of the country. It contains <i well- 
digested summary of all essential knozvledge pertaining to Ii:dian 
Botany, wrought out in accordance with the best principles of 
scientific arrangement '." — Allen's Indian Mail. 

Penrose (F. C.)— ON A METHOD OF PREDICTING BY 
GRAPHICAL CONSTRUCTION, OCCULTATIONS OF 
STARS BY THE MOON, AND SOLAR ECLIPSES FOR 
ANY GIVEN PLACE. Together with more rigorous methods 
for the Accurate Calculation of Longitude. By F. C. PENROSE, 
F.R.A.S. With Charts, Tables, etc. 4-to. I2j\ 

The author believes that if, by a gr-aphic method, the prediction of 
occultations can be rendered more inviting, as well as more expedi- 
tious, than by the method of calculation, it may prove acceptable to 
the nautical profession as well as to scientific travellers or amateurs. 
The author has endeavoured to make the whole process as intelli- 
gible as possible, so that the beginner, instead of merely having to 
Jollow directions imperfectly understood, may readily comprehend 
the meaning of each step, and be able to illustrate the practice by the 
theory. Besides all necessary charts and tables, the work contains 
a large number of skeleton forms for working out eases in 
practice, 

Roscoe. — Works by Henry E. Roscoe, F.R.S., Professor o 
Chemistry in Owens College, Manchester : — 

LESSONS IN ELEMENTARY CHEMISTRY, INORGANIC 
AND ORGANIC. With numerous Illustrations and Chromo- 
litho of the Solar Spectrum, and of the Alkalies and Alkaline 
Earths. New Edition. i8mo. cloth. 4s. 6d. 

It has been the endeavour of the author to arrange the most important 
facts and principles of Modern Chemistry in a plain but concise 
and scientific form, suited to the present requirements of elementary 
instruction. For the purpose of facilitating the attainment of 
exactitude in the knowledge of the subject, a series of exercises and 
qtiestions upon the lessons have been added. The metric system of 
•weights and measures, and the centigrade thermometric scale, are 
C 2 



36 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 

R O S C O e — continued. 

used throughout this tvork. The neiv edition, besides nezv wood- 
cuts, contains many additions and improvements, and includes the 
most important of the latest discoveries. " We unhesitatingly pro- 
nounce it the best of all our elementary treatises on Chemistry. u — 
Medical Times. 

SPECTRUM ANALYSIS. Six Lectures, with Appendices, En- 
gravings, Maps, and Chromolithographs. Royal 8vo. 21s. 

A Third Edition of these popular Lectures, containing all the most 
recent discoveries and several additional illustrations. "In six 
lectures he has given the history of the discoveiy and set forth the 
facts relating to the analysis of light in such a way that any reader 
of ordinary intelligence and information zvill be able to understand 
zvhat ' Spectrum Analysis' 1 is, and what are its claims to rank 
among the most signal triumphs of science.'''' — Nonconformist. 
' ' The lectures themselves furnish a most admirable elementary- 
treatise on the subject, whilst by the insertion in appendices to each 
lecture of extracts fro??i the most important published memoirs, the 
author has rendered it equally valuable as a text-book for advanced 
students. " — Westminster Review. 

Stewart (B.)— LESSONS IN ELEMENTARY PHYSICS. 
By Balfour Stewart, F.R.S., Professor of Natural Philosophy 
in Owens College, Manchester. With numerous Illustrations and! 
Chromolithos of the Spectra of the Sun, Stars, and Nebulae. New 
Edition. i8mo. 4s. 6d. 

A description, in an elementary manner, of the most important of 
those laws which regulate the phenomena of nature. The active 
agents, heat '," light, electricity, etc., are regarded as varieties of 
energy, and the work is so arranged that their relation to one 
another, looked at in this light, and the paramount importance of 
the laws of energy, are clearly brought out. The volume contains 
all the necessary illustrations. The Educational Times calls this 
"the beau-ideal of a scientific text-book, clear, accurate, and 
thorough." 

Taylor. — SOUND AND MUSIC : A Non-Mathematical Trea- 
tise en the Phvsical Constitution of Musical Sounds and Harmony, 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



including the Chief Acoustical Discoveries of Professor Helm- 
holtz. By Sedley Taylor, M.A., late Fellow of Trinity Col- 
ledge, Cambridge. Large crown 8vo. Ss. 6d. 

This treatise aims at placing before persons unacquainted with 
Mathematics an intelligible and succinct account of that part of 
the Theory of Sound -which constitutes the physical basis of the 
Art of Music. No preliminary knowledge, save of Arithmetic 
and of the musical notation in common use, is assumed to be pos- 
sessed by the -reader. The importance of combining theoretical and 
experimental modes of treatment has been kept steadily in view 
throughout. Though the author has incorporated the chief acous- 
tical discoveries of Professor Hehnholtz, the present volume is not a 
mere epitome of his -work, but the restilt of independent study. 

Thomson. — THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA : An Account of the 
General Results of the Dredging Cruises of H.M. SS. " Porcupine '*' 
and "Lightning" during the Summers of 1868-69 an d 70, under 
the scientific direction of Dr. Carpenter, F.R.S., J. Gwyn Jeffreys. 
F.R.S., and Dr. Wyville Thomson, F.R.S. By Dr. Wyville 
Thomson, Director of the Scientific Staff of the "Challenger" 
Expedition. With nearly 100 Illustrations and 8 coloured Maps 
and Plans. Second Edition. Royal 8vo. cloth, gilt. 3U. 6d. 

It -was the important and interesting results recorded in this vol inn, 
that induced the Government to send^ out the great Expedition now 
launched under the scientific guidance of Dr. Wyville Thomson. 
The Athenaeum says, ' ' Professor \ Thomson' 's book is full of in- 
teresting matter, and is written by a master of the art of popular 
exposition. It is excellently illustrated, both coloured maps and 
-woodcuts possessing high merit. Those -who have already become 
interested in dredging operations will of course make a point of 
reading this work ; those who wish to be pleasantly introduced to the 
subject, and rightly to appreciate the news -which arrives from time 
to time from the " Challenger," should not fail to seek instruction 
from Professor Thomson.'''' 

Thornton. — OLD-FASHIONED ETHICS, AND COMMON- 
SENSE METAPHYSICS, with some of their Applications. By 
William Thomas Thornton, Author of "A Treatise on Labour." 
■Svo. 1 os. 6d. 



38 SCIENTIFIC CA TALC G UE. 



The present volume deals with problems which are agitating the 
Minds* of all thoughtful men. The following are the Contents: — 
/". Atite-Utilitarianism. II. History's Scientific P?-elensions. III. 
David Hume as a Metaphysician. IV. Huxley ism. V. Recent 
Phases of Scientific Atheism. VI limits of Demonstrable Theism. 

Thudichum and Dupre. — a treatise on the 

ORIGIN, NATURE, AND VARIETIES OF WINE. 
Being a Complete Manual of Viticulture and CEnology. By J. L. 
W. Thudichum; M.D., and August Dupre, Ph.D., Lecturer on 
Chemistry at Westminster Hospital. Medium 8vo. cloth gilt. 255. 

In this elaborate work the subject of the manufacture of wine is 
treated scientifically in minute detail, from every point of view. A 
chapter is devoted to the Origin and Physiology of Vines, two tc the 
Principles of Viticulture-; while other chapters treat of Vintage and 
Vihification, the Chemistry of Alcohol, the Acids, Ether, Sugars, 
and other matters occurring in wine. This introductory matter 
occupies the first nine chapters, the remaining seventeen chapters 
being occupied with a detailed account of the Viticulture and the 
Wines of the various countries of Europe, of the Atlantic Islands, 
of Asia, of Africa, of America, and of Australia. Besides a 
numbei' of Analytical and Statistical Tables, the work is enriched 
with eighty-five illustrative woodcuts. ''A treatise almost unique 
for its usefulness either to the wine-grower, the vendor, or the con- 
sumer of wine. The analyses of wine are- the most complete we 
have yet seen, exhibiting at a glance the constituent principles of 
nearly all the wines known in this country '." — Wine Trade Review. 



Wallace (A. R.) — contributions to the theory 

OF NATURAL SELECTION. A Series of Essays. By 
Alfred Russel Wallace, Author of " The Malay Archipelago," 
etc. Second Edition, with Corrections and Additions. Crown 
8vo. 8jv 6d. (For other Works by the same Author, see Cata- 
logue of History and Travels.) 

Mr. Wallace has good claims to be considered as an independent 
originator of the theory of itatural selection. Dr. Hooker, in 
Ids address to the British Association, spoke thus of the author : 
' ' Sf Mr. Wallace and his many contributions to philosophical 
Mot&gy. it is not easy to speak without enthusiasm ;. for, putting 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 39 



aside their great merits, he, throughout his writings, with d 
modesty as rare as I believe it to be unconscious, forgets his own 
unquestioned claim to the honour of having originated indepen- 
dently of Mr. Darwin, the theories which he so ably defends.'" 
The Saturday Review says : "He has combined an abundance of 
fresh and original facts with a liveliness and sagacity of reasoning 
which are not often displayed so effectively on so small a scale." 
The Essays in this volume are : — I. "On the Law which has regu- 
lated the introduction of New Species. ,'' //. " On the Tendencies 
of Varieties to detart indefinitely from the Original Type" III. 
" 'Mimicry, and other Protective Resemblances among Animals." 
IV. " The Malayan Papilionidce, as illustrative of the Theory 
of Naturul Selection . " V. "On Instinct in Ma n and A n imals . ' ' 
VI "The Philosophy of Birds' Nests." VII " 'A Theory of 
Birds' Nests." VIII " Creation by law." IX. " The Develop- 
ment of Human Races under the law of Natural Selection" 
X. " The Limits of Natural Selection as applied to Alan." 

Warington.— THE WEEK OF CREATION ; OR, THE 
COSMOGONY OF GENESIS CONSIDERED IN ITS 
RELATION TO MODERN SCIENCE. By George War- 
ington, Author of " The Historic Character of the Pentateuch 
Vindicated." Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. 

The greater part of this work it taken up with the teaching of the 
Cosmogony. Its purpose is also investigated, and a chapter is 
devoted to the consideration of the passage in which the difficulties 
occur. "A very able vindication of the Mosaic Cosmogony, by a 
writer who unites the advantages of a critical kncnaledge of the 
Hebrew text and of distinguished scientific attainments" — 
Spectator. 

Wilson. — Works by the late George Wilson, M.D., F.R.S.E., 
Regius Professor of Technology in the University of Edinburgh : — 

RELIGIO CHEMICI. With a Vignette beautifully engraved after 
a design by Sir Noel Paton. Crown 8vo. Ss. 6d. 

1 ' George Wilson," says the Preface to- this volume, c 'had it in his heart 
for many years to write a book corresponding to the Religio Medici 
of Sir Thomas Browne, with the title Religio Chemici; Several 
of the Essays in this volume were intended to form chapters of it. 



4o SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 



WilS0n_ continued. 

These fragments being in most cases like finished gems tvaiting to be 
set, some of them are now given in a collected form to his friends 
and the public. In living remembrance of his purpose, the name 
chosen by himself has been adopted, although the original design 
can be but very faintly represented.'''' The Contents of the volu?ne 
are: — " Chemistry and Natural Theology.'" " The Chemistry of 
the Stars ; an Argument touching the Stars" and their Inhabitants ." 
' ' Chemical Final Causes ; as illustrated by the presence of Phos- 
phorus, Nitrogen, and Iron in the Higher Sentient Organisms.'" 
' ' Robert Boyle. " " Wollaston. " "Life and Discoveries of Dalton . ' ' 
" Thoughts on the Resurrection ; an Address to Medical Students :" 
"A more fascinating volume," the Spectator says, "has seldom 
fallen into our hands.'" The Freeman says: "These papers are all 
valuable and deeply interesting. The p7'oduction of a profound 
thinker, a suggestive and eloquent write}', and a man whose piety 
and genius went hand in hand." 

THE PROGRESS OF THE TELEGRAPH. Fcap. 8vo. is. 

" While a complete viezv of the progress of the greatest of human 
inventions is obtained, all its suggestions are brought out with a 
rare thoughtfulness, a genial humour ; and an exceeding beauty of 
utterance?''- — Nonconformist. 



Wilson (Daniel.)— CALIBAN : THE MISSING LINK. By 
Daniel Wilson, LL.D., Professor of History and English Litera- 
ture in University College, Toronto. 8vo, iqs. 6d. 

In the present state of the controversy as to the Origin of Man, this 
work of a competent scholar and critic, in which the Monster 
Caliban is studied from various points of view, will be of consider- 
able interest. Besides ' ' Caliban, " the work treats of various other 
matters of Shakespearian interest, as " The Supernatural," " Ghosts 
and Witches," "Fairy Folk- Lore," " The Commentators" " The 
Folios." The two last chapters contain notes on "The Tempest," 
and " A Midsummer Nisrhfs Dream." 



Winslow. — FORCE AND NATURE : ATTRACTION AND 
REPULSION. The Radical Principles of Energy graphically 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 41 

discussed in their Relations to Physical and Morphological De- 
velopment. By C. F. Winslow, M.D. 8vo. 141. 

The author having for long investigated Nature in many directions, 
has ever felt tin satisfied with the physical foundations upon which 
some branches of science have been so long compelled to rest. The 
question, he believes, must have occurred to many astronomers and 
physicists whether some subtle principle antagonistic to attraction 
does not also exist as an all-pervading element in nature, and so 
operate as in some way to disturb the action of what is generally 
considered by the scientific zvorld a unique force. The aim of the 
present work is to set for-th this subject in its broadest aspects, and 
in such a manner as to invite thereto the attention of the learned. 
The subjects of the eleven chapters are : — I. "Space." II. "Matter." 
III. "Inertia, Force, and Mind." IV. "Molecules." V. 
"Molecular Force." VI. "Union and Inseparability of Matter 
and Force." VII. and VIII. "Nature and Action of Fo?re — 
Attraction — Repulsion." IX. " Cosmical Repulsion." X." Me- 
chanical Force." XI. "Central Forces and Celestial Physics." 
"Preserves thoughtful and conscientious study." — Saturday Review. 

Wurtz.— A HISTORY OF CHEMICAL THEORY, from the 
Age of Lavoisier down to the present time. By Ad. Wurtz. 
Translated by Henry Watts, F.R.S. Crown 8vo. 6s. 

" The discourse, as a resume of chemical theory and research, unites 
singular luminousness and grasp. A few judicious notes are added 
by the translator." — Pall Mall Gazette. " The treatment of the 
subject is admirable, aitd the translator has evidently done his duty 
most efficiently." — Westminster Review. 

Young.— SIMPLE PRACTICAL METHODS OF CALCU- 
LATING STRAINS ON GIRDERS, ARCHES, AND 
TRUSSES ; with a Supplementary Essay on Economy in Sus- 
pension Bridges. By E. W. Young, Member of the Institution 
of Civil Engineers. 8vo. 7s. 6d. 



42 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 



WORKS IN PHYSIOLOGY, ANATOMY, AND 
MEDICAL WORKS GENERALLY. 



Allbutt (T. C.)— ON THE USE OF THE OPHTHALMO- 
SCOPE in Diseases of the Nervous System and of the Kidneys ; 
also in certain other General Disorders. By Thomas Clifford 
Allbutt, M.A., M.D. Cantab., Physician to the Leeds General 
Infirmary, Lecturer on Practical Medicine, etc. etc. 8vo. 15^. 

The Ophthalmoscope has been found of the highest value in the inves- 
tigation of nervous diseases. But it is not easy for physicians who 
have left the schools, and are engaged in practice, to take up a neui 
instrument zvhich requires much skill in using ; it is therefore 
hoped that by such the present volume, containing the results of the 
author's extensive use of the instrument in diseases of the nervous 
syste??i, will be found of service ; and that to all students it may 
prove a useful hand-book. After four introductory chapters on the 
history and value of the Ophthalmoscope, and the manner of investi- 
gating the states of the optic nei've and retina, the author treats oj 
the various diseases with which optic changes are associated, and 
describes the way in zvhich such associations take place. Besides 
the cases referred to throughout the volume, the Appendix con- 
tains details of 123 cases illustrative of the subjects discussed in the 
text, and a series of tabulated cases to show the Ophthalmoscopic 
appearances of the eye in Insanity, Mania, Dementia, Melancholia 
and Monomania, Idiotcy, and General Paralysis. The volume is 
illustrated with two coloured plates of morbid appearances of the 
eye under the Ophthalmoscope. 

THE EFFECTS OF OVERWORK AND STRAIN ON THE 
HEART AND GREAT BLOOD-VESSELS. (Reprinted from 
St George's Hospital Reports.) 2s. 6d. 

Anderson.— ON THE TREATMENT OF DISEASES OF 
THE SKIN : with an Analysis of Eleven Thousand Consecutive 



PHYSIOLOGY, ANATOMY, ETC. 43 



Cases. By Dr. McCall Anderson, Professor of Practice of 
Medicine in Anderson's University. Physician to the Dispensary for 
Skin Diseases, etc., Glasgow. Crown 8vo. cloth. 5^. 

The first part of this work consists of a carefully tabulated and critical 
analysis of 11,000 cases of shin disease, I, "000 of these having 
occurred in the author 's private practice, and the rest in his hos- 
pital practice. These cases are all classified tinder certain distinct 
heads, according to the nature and cause of the disease, while a 
number of the more interesting cases are alluded to in detail. The 
second part of the work treats of the Therapeutics of Diseases of 
the Skin, and will be found to contain many hints, the results of a 
long and extensive experience, as to the most successful method of 
treating their multitudinous forms. 

Anstie (F. E.)— NEURALGIA, AND DISEASES WHICH 
RESEMBLE IT. By Francis E. Anstie, M.D., M.R.C.P., 
Senior Assistant Physician to Westminster Hospital. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 

The present treatise is the result of many years' 1 independent scientific 
investigation into the nature and proper treatment of this most 
■painful disease. The author has had abundant means of studying 
the subject both in his own person and in the hundreds of patients 
that have resorted to him for treatment. The Introduction treats 
briefly of Pain in General, and contains some ideas as to its nature 
and in reference to sensation generally. 

Barwell. — THE CAUSES AND TREATMENT OF LATERAL 
CURVATURE OF THE SPINE. Enlarged from Lectures 
published in the lancet. By Richard Barwell, F.R.C.S., 
Surgeon to and Lecturer on Anatomy at the Charing Cross Hospital. 
Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. 

Having failed to find in books a satisfactory theory of those conditions 
zvkich produce lateral curvature, Mr. Barwell resolved to investi- 
gate the subject for himself ab initio. The present work is the 
result of long study of Spines, normal and abnormal. He 
believes the views zvhich he has been led to form account for those 
essential characteristics which have hitherto been left unexplained ; 
and the treatment which he advocates is certainly less irksome, and 
will -be found more efficacious than that which has hitherto been 
pursued, Indeed, the mode in which the first edition has been 



44 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 

received by the profession is a gratifying sign that Mr. BarwelVs 
principles have made their value and their weight felt. Many 
pages and a number of woodcuts have been added to the Second 
Edition. 

Corfield (Professor W. H.) — a DIGEST OF FACTS 

RELATING TO THE TREATMENT AND UTILIZATION 
OF SEWAGE. By W. H. Corfield, M.A., B.A., Professor 
of Hygiene and Public Health at University College, London. 
8vo. I or. 6d. Second Edition, corrected and enlarged. 

The author in the Second Edition has revised and corrected the entire 
work, and made many important additions. The headings of the 
eleven chapters are as follow : — I. "Early Systems: Midden- Heaps 
and Cesspools." II. "Filth and Disease — Cause and Effect." 
III. "Improved Midden-Pits and Cesspools ; Midden- Closets, Pail- 
Closets, etc" IV. "The Dry-Closet Systems" V. "Water- Closets" 
VI. "Sewerage." VII. " Sanitary Aspects of the Water- Carrying 
System." VIII. "Value of Sewage; Injury to Rivers." IX. 
"Town Sewage; Attempts at Utilization." X. "Filtration and 
Irrigation." XI. " Influence of Sezvage Farming on the Public 
Health." An abridged account of the more recently published 
researches on the subject will be found in the Appendices, while 
the Summary contains a concise statement of the views which the 
author himself has been led to adopt: references have been inserted 
throughout to show from what sources the itumerous quotations have 
been derived, and an Index has been added. "Mr. Corfield 's work 
is entitled to rank as a standard authority, no less than a con- 
venient handbook, in all matters relating to sewage." — Athenaeum. 

Elam (C.)— A PHYSICIAN'S PROBLEMS. By Charles 
ELAM, M.D., M.R.C.P. Crown 8vo. gs. 

Contents :— -" Natural Heritage." " On Degeneration in Man." 
" On Moral and Criminal Epidemics." "Body v. Mind." " Il- 
lusions and Hallucinations." " On Somnambulism." "Reverie 
and Abstraction." These Essays are intended as a contribution to 
the Natural History of those outlying regions of Thought and 
Action whose domain is the debatable ground of Brain, Nerve, 
and Mind. They are designed also to indicate the origin and mode 
of perpetuation of those varieties of organization, intelligence, and 
general tendencies towards vice or virtue, which seem to be so 



PHYSIOLOGY, ANATOMY, ETC. 45 

capriciously developed among mankind. They also point to causes 
for the infinitely varied forms of disorder of nerve and drain — 
organic and functional— far deeper and more recondite than those 
generally believed in. " The book is one which all statesmen, 
magistrates, clergymen, medical men, and parents should study and 
inwardly digest. " — Examiner. 

FOX. — Works by Wilson Fox, M.D. Lond., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., 
Holme Professor of Clinical Medicine, University College, London, 
Physician Extraordinary to her Majesty the Queen, etc. : — 

DISEASES OF THE STOMACH : being a new and revised 
Edition of "The Diagnosis and Treatment of the 
Varieties of Dyspepsia." 8vo. 8s. 6d. 

ON THE ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF TUBERCLE IN 
THE LOWER ANIMALS. With Coloured Plates. 4*0. 5-r. 6d. 

In this Lecture Dr. Fox describes in minute detail a large number of 
experiments made by him on guineapigs and rabbits for the pur- 
pose of inquiring into the origin of Tubercle by the agency of direct 
irritation or by septic matters. The work is illustrated by three 
plates, containing a number of coloured illustrations from nature. 

ON THE TREATMENT OF HYPERPYREXIA, as Illustrated 
in Acute Articular Rheumatism by means of the External Applica- 
tion of Cold. 8vo. 2.s. 6d. 

The object of this work is to shozv that the class of cases included under 
the title, and zvhich have hitherto been invariably fatal, may, by 
the use of the cold bath, be brought to a f avoidable termination. 
Details are given of the successful treatment by this method of two 
patients by the author, followed by a Commentary on the cases, in 
zvhich the merits of this mode of treatment are discussed and com- 
pared with those of other methods. Appended are tables of the 
observations made on the temperature during the treatment ; a table 
showing the effect of the immersion of the patients in the baths em- 
ployed, in order to exhibit the rate at which the tempei'ature was 
lowered in each case; a table of the chief details of twenty-two 
cases of this class recently published, and which are refei'red to in 
various parts of the Commentary. Tzoo Charts are also introduced. 



46 SCIEN TIFIC CA TALOG UE. 



giving a connected view of the progress of the two successful cases, 
and a series of sphygmographic tracings of the pulses of the two 
patients. • ' A clinical study of rare value. Should be read by 
'everyone.'''' — Medical Press and Circular. 



Galton (D.) — AN ADDRESS ON THE GENERAL PRIN- 
CIPLES WHICH SHOULD BE OBSERVED IN THE 
CONSTRUCTION OF HOSPITALS. Delivered to the British 
Medical Association at Leeds, July 1869. By Douglas Galton, 
C.B., F.R.S. Crown 8vo. y.bd. 

In this Address the author endeavours to enunciate what are those 
principles which seem to him to form the startingpoint from which 
all architects should proceed in the construction of hospitals. Be- 
sides Mr. Galton 's paper the book contains the opinions expressed in 
the subsequent dismssion by several eminent medical men, such as 
Dr. Kennedy, Sir James Y. Simpson, Dr. Hughes Bennet, and 
others. The work is illustrated by a number of plans, sections, and 
other cuts. "An admirable exposition of those conditions of struc- 
ture which ?nost conduce to cleanliness, economy, and convenience." 
— Times. 

Harley (J.)— THE OLD VEGETABLE NEUROTICS, Hem- 
lock, Opium, Belladonna, and Henbane ; their Physiological 
Action and Therapeutical Use, alone and in combination. Being 
the Gulstonian Lectures of 1868 extended, and including a Complete 
Examination of the Active Constituents of Opium. By John 
Harley, M.D. Lond., F.R.C.P., F.L.S., etc. 8vo. \2s. 

The author's object throughout the inv£stigations and experiments on 
which this volume is founded has been to ascertain, clearly and 
definitely, the action of the drugs employed on the healthy body in 
medicinal doses, from the smallest to the largest ; to deduce swiple 
practical conclusions from the facts observed ; and then to apply the 
drug to the relief of the particular conditions to which its action 
appeared suited. Many experiments have been made by the author 
both on men and the lower animals ; and the author 's endeavour 
has been to present to the mind, as far as words may do, impres- 
sions of the actual condition of the individual subjected to the 
drug. 



PHYSIOLOGY, ANATOMY, ETC. 47 

Hood (Wharton).— -ON BONE-SETTING (so called), and 
its Relation to the Treatment of Joints Crippled by Injury, Rheu- 
matism, Inflammation, etc. etc. By Wharton P. Hood, 
M.D., M.R.C.S. Crown 8vo. $s. 6d. 

The author for a period attended the London practice of the late Mr. 
Hutton, the famous and successful bone-setter, by whom he zvas 
initiated into the mystery of the art and practice. Thus he is 
amply qualified to write on the subject from the practical point of 
view, while his professional education enables him to consider it in 
its scientific and surgical bearings. In the present work he gives a 
brief account of the salient features of a bone-setter' 's method of pro- 
cedure in the treatment of damaged joints, of the results of that treat- 
ment, and of the class of cases in which he has seen it prove successful. 
'The author's aim is to give the rationale of the bone-setter' 's practice, 
to reduce it to something like a scientific method, to show zvhen force 
should be resorted to and when it should not, and to initiate 
surgeons into the secret of Mr. Hutton! s successful manipulation. 
Throughout the work a great number of authentic instances of 
successful treatment are given, tvith the details of the method of 
cure; and the Chapters on Manipulations and Affections of the 
Spine are illustrated by a number of appropriate cuts. 

Humphry. — Works by G. M. Humphry, M.D., F.R.S., Professoi 
of Anatomy in the University of Cambridge, and Honorary Fellow 
of Downing College : — 

THE HUMAN SKELETON (including the Joints). With 26a 
Illustrations, drawn from nature. Medium 8vo. 283". 
hi lecturing on the Skeleton it has been the author's practice, instead 
of giving a detailed account of the several parts, to request his 
students to get tip the descriptive anatomy of certain bones, with the 
aid of some work on osteology. He afterwards tested their acquire- 
ments by examination, endeavouring to supply deficiencies and 
correct errors, adding also such information —physical, physiologi- 
cal, pathological, and practical— as he had gathered from his own 
observation, and researches, and which was likely to be useful and 
excite an interest in the subject. This additional information 
forms, in great part, the material of this volu?ne, which is intended 
to be supplementary to existing works on anatomy. Considerable 
space has been devoted to the description of the joints, because it is 
less fully given in other works, and because an accurate knowledge^ 



SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 



H U m phry — continued. 

of the structure and peculiar form of the joints is essential to a 
correct knowledge of their movements. The numerous illustrations 
were all drawn upon stone from nature; and in most instances 
from specimens prepared for the purpose by the author himself 

OBSERVATIONS IN MYOLOGY. 8vo. 6s. 

This work includes the Myology of Cryptobranch, Lepidosiren, Dog- 
Fish, Ceratodus, and Fseudopus Tallasii, with the Nerves of Crypto- 
branch and Lepidosiren and the Disposition of Muscles in Vertebrate 
Animals. The volume contains a large number of illustrations. 

Huxley's Physiology. — See p. 27, preceding. 

Journal of Anatomy and Physiology. 

Conducted by Professors Humphry and Newton, and Mr. Clark 
of Cambridge, Professor Turner of Edinburgh, and Dr. 
Wright of Dublin. Published twice a year. Old Series, Parts 
I. and II., price Js. 6d. each. Vol. I. containing Parts I. and II., 
Royal 8vo., 16s. New Series, Parts I. to IX. 6s. each, or yearly 
Vols. 12s. dd. each. 

Leishman.— A SYSTEM OF MIDWIFERY, including the 
Diseases of Pregnancy and the Puerperal State. By William 
Leishman, M.D., Regius Professor of Midwifery in the Univer- 
sity of Glasgow; Physician to the University Lying-in Hospital; 
Fellow and late Vice-President of the Obstetrical Society of 
London, etc. etc. 8vo. Illustrated. 30$-. 

The author's object hi this %vork has been to furnish to students and 
practitioners a complete system of the Midwifery of the present 
day. There exists no text-book in English which can be compared 
with those of Cazeaux and Scauzoni ; this want the author has 
endeavoured to supply by the publication of the present work, 
in writing which he has availed himself of all the most recent 
researches. The work is profusely illustrated. 

Lankester. — COMPARATIVE LONGEVITY IN MAN AND 
THE LOWER ANIMALS. By E. Ray Lankester, B.A. 
Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. 



PHYSIOLOGY, ANATOMY, ETC. 49 

This Essay gained the prize offered by the University of Oxford for 
the best Paper on the subject of which it treats. This interesting 
subject is here treated in a thorough manner, both scientifically and 
statistically. 

Maclaren — training, in theory and practice. 

By Archibald Maclaren, the Gymnasium, Oxford. 8vo. 
Handsomely bound in cloth, Js. 6d. 

The ordinary agents of health are Exercise, Diet, Sleep, Air, Bath- 
ing, and Clothing. In this work the author examines each of 
these agents in detail, and from two different points of view. First, 
as to the manner in which it is, or should be, administered under 
ordinary circumstances: and secondly, in what manner and to 
what extent this mode of administration is, or should be, altered for 
purposes of training ; the object of "training," according to the 
author, being " to put the body, tvith extreme and exceptional care, 
under the influence of all the agents which promote its health and 
strength, in order to enable it to meet extreme and exceptional de- 
mands upon its energies." Appended are various diagrams and 
tables relating to boat-racing, and tables connected with diet and 
training. " The philosophy of human health has seldom received 
so apt an exposition." — Globe. " After all the nonsense that has 
been written about training, it is a comfort to gd hold of a 
thoroughly sensible book at last." — John Bull. 

Macpherson.— Works by John Macpherson, M.D. :— 

THE BATHS AND WELLS OF EUROPE ; Their Action and 

Uses. With Notices of Climatic Resorts and Diet Cures. With 

a Map. New Edition, revised and enlarged. Extra fcap. 8vo. 

6s. 6d. 

This work is intended to supply information which will afford aid in 
the selection of such Spas as are suited for particular cases. It 
exhibits a sketch of the present condition of our knowledge on the 
subject of the operation of mineral waters, gathered from the 
author's personal observation, and from every oilier available 
source of information. It is divided into four books, and each 
book into several chapters :—Bosk I. Elements of Treatment, in 
which, among other matters, the exierual-and internal uses of water 
are treated of II. Bathing, treating of the various kinds of baths. 
III. Wells, treating of the various kinds of mineral -waters. 
D 



50 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 

Macpherson (J.)— continued. 

IV. Diet Cures, in which various vegetable, milk, and other 
" cures " are discussed. Appended is an Index of Diseases noticed, 
and one of places named. Prefixed is a sketch map of the principal 
baths and places of health-resort in Europe. " Dr. Alacpherson 
has given the kind of information which every medical practitioner 
ought to possess." — The Lancet. ''''Whoever wants to knozv the 
real character of any health-resort ?nust read Dr. Macpherson 's 
book." — Medical Times. 

OUR BATHS AND WELLS : The Mineral Waters of the British 
Islands, with a List of Sea-bathing Places. Extra fcap. 8vo. 
pp. xv. 205. 3^. 6d. 

Dr. Macpherson has divided his work into five parts. He begins by 
a few introductory observations on bath life, its circumstances, uses, 
and pleasures ; he then explains in detail the composition of the 
various mineral waters, and points out the special curative pro- 
perties of each class. A chapter on ' ' The History of British 
Wells " from the earliest period to the present time forms the 
natural transition to the second part of this volume, which treats of 
the different kinds of mineral waters in England, whether pure, 
thermal and earthy, saline, chalybeate, or sulphur. Wales, Scot- 
land, and Ireland supply the materials for distinct sections. An 
Index of mineral waters, one of sea-bathing places, and a third of 
wells of pure or nearly pure water, terminate the book. (l This little 
volume forms a very available handbook for a large class of 
invalids. " — Nonconformist. 

Maudsley. — Works by Henry Maudsley, M.D., Professor of 
Medical Jurisprudence in University College, London : — 

BODY AND MIND : An Inquiry into their Connection and 
Mutual Influence, specially in reference to Mental Disorders ; being 
the Gulstonian Lectures for 1870. Delivered before the Royal 
College of Physicians. Crown 8vo. $s. New Edition, with 
Psychological Essays added. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d. 

The volume consists of three lectures and two long Appendices, the 
general plan of the whole being to bring Man, both in his physical 
and mental relations, as much as possible under the scope of scientific 
inquiry. The first Lecture is devoted to an exposition of the physical 



PHYSIOLOGY, ANATOMY, ETC. 51 



Maudsley (H.)— continued. 

conditions of mental function in health. In the second Lecture are 
sketched 'the feahcres of 'some forms of degeneracy of mind, as exhibited 
in morbid varieties of the human kind, with the purpose of bringing 
prominently into notice the operation of physical causes from 
generation to generation, and the relationship of mental to other 
diseases of the nervous system. In the third Lecture are displayed 
the relations of morbid states of the body and disordered mental 
function. Appendix I. is a criticism of the Archbishop of York's 
address on " The Limits of Philosophical Inquiry.'" Appendix II. 
deals with the " Theory of Vitality," in which the author en- 
deavours to set forth the reflections which facts seem to warrant. 



THE PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF MIND. 

Second Edition, Revised. 8vo. 16s. 

This work is the result of an endeavour on the author's part to arrive 
at some definite conviction with regard to the physical conditions of 
mental function, and the relation of the phenomena of sound and 
unsound mind. The author's aim throughout has been twofold ■: 
I. To treat of mental phenomena from a physiological rather than 
from a metaphysical point of view. II To bring the manifold 
instructive instances p'esented by the unsound mind to bear upon 
the interpretation of the obscure problems of ?nental science. 

Morgan.— UNIVERSITY OARS: Being a Critical Enquiry 
into the After-health of the Men who rowed in the Oxford and 
Cambridge Boat-Race, from the year 1829 to 1869, based upon the 
personal experience of the Rowers themselves. By John E. 
Morgan. M.D., M.A. Oxon., F.R.C.P., late Captain of the 
John + (Coll. Univ.), Physician to the Manchester Royal 
Infirmary, author of " The Deterioration of Races," etc. Crown 
8vo. 10s. 6d. 

11 Dr. Morgan's book presents in a most admirable manner full ana 
accurate statistics of the duration of life, and of the causes of 
death, of all the men who have rowed in Oxford and Cambridge 
boats from 1829 to 1869, and also gives letters addressed to the 
author by nearly every individual of the number." — Daily News. 
D 2 



SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 



Practitioner (The).— A Monthly Journal of Therapeutics 
and Public Health. Edited by Francis E. Anstie, M.D. 
Svo. Price is. 6d. Half-yearly vols., 8vo. cloth. 10s. 6d. each. 

Radcliffe.— DYNAMICS OF NERVE AND MUSCLE. By 
Charles Bland Radcliffe, M.D., F.R.C.P., Physician to the 
Westminster Hospital, and to the National Hospital for the 
Paralysed and Epileptic. Crown 8vo. Ss. 6d. 

This work contains the result of the author's long investigations into 
the Dynamics of Nerve and Muscle, as connected with Ani?nal Elec- 
tricity. He endeavours to show from these researches that the state 
of action in nerve and muscle, instead of being a manifestation of 
vitality, must be brought under the domain of physical law in order 
to be intelligible, and that a different meaning, also based upon pure 
physics, must be attached to the state of rest. 

Reynolds (J. R.)— A SYSTEM OF MEDICINE. Vol. I. 
Edited by J. Russell Reynolds, M.D., F.R.C.P. London. 
Second Edition. 8vo. 25J. 
' ' // is the best Cyclofcedia of medicine of the time." — Medical Press. 

Tart I. General Diseases, or Affections of the Whole System. 
§ /. — Those determined by agents operating from without, such as 
the exanthemata, malarial diseases, and their allies. § II. — Those 
determined by conditions existing within the body, such as Gout, 
Rheumatism, Rickets, etc. Part II. Local Diseases, or Affections 
of particular Systems. § I. — Diseases of the Skin. 

A SYSTEM OF MEDICINE. Vol. II. Second Edition. 8vo. 

25-f. 

Tart II. Local Diseases (continued). § I. — Diseases of the Nervous 
System. A. General Nervous Diseases. B. Partial Diseases of 
the A T ervous System. I. Diseases of the Head. 2. Diseases of the 
Spinal Column. 3. Diseases of the A r erves. § 77. — Diseases of 
the Digestive System. A. Diseases of the Stomach. 

A SYSTEM OF MEDICINE. Vol. III. 8vo. 25^. 

Tart II. Local Diseases (continued). § LL Diseases of the Digestive 
System (continued). B. Diseases of the Month. C. Diseases of 



PHYSIOLOGY, ANATOMY, ETC. 



the Fauces, Pharynx, and (Esophagus. D. Diseases of the In- 
testines. E. Diseases of the Peritoneum. E. Diseases of the 
Liver. G. Diseases of the Pancreas. § III. — Diseases of the 
Respiratory System. A. Diseases of the Larynx. B. Diseases of 
the Thoracic Orsrans. 



Reynolds (O.)— SEWER GAS, AND HOW TO KEEP IT 
OUT OF HOUSES. A Handbook on House Drainage. By 
Osborne Reynolds, M.A., Professor of Engineering at Owens 
College, Manchester, Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge. 
Second Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, is. 6d. 

The author's chief object in writing on this subject is to suggest a plan 
for preventing the evil which has been causing so much alarm since 
the recent illness of the Prince of Wales — viz. the back-flow of gas 
into our houses. Of the plan he here suggests, he has now had 
four years' experience, and has, without exception, found it to answer 
perfectly. He applied it to his own house, a house of the ordinary 
type drained into a foul sewer, at a cost of about fifty shillings. 
Before the introduction of the new plan it was never free from smells; 
while since, there has been no annoyance of the kind, nor have the 
drains required any attention whatever. The plan is very simple 
and can be applied to any house without requiring the inside drains 
to be disturbed. Besides fully explaining the plan and showing its 
application by means of illustrations, the author throws out sicg- 
gestions with regard to drainage generally which many zuill find 
to be very valuable. " Professor Reynolds' admirable pamphlet will 
a thousand times over repay its cost and the reader's most attentive 
perusal." — Mechanics' Magazine. 



Rolieston. — THE HARVEIAN ORATION, 1873. By George 
Rolleston, M.D., F.R.S., Linacre Professor of Anatomy and 
Physiology, and Fellow of Merton College, in the University of 
Oxford. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. 

In this Lecture the author expounds certain advances recently made 
in our knowledge of the a?iatomy and physiology of the circulatory 
organs, and gives the as yet unrecorded history of one of the many 
attempts to rob Harvey of the glory of the great discovery. 



54 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 



Seaton. — A HANDBOOK OF VACCINATION. By Edward 
C. Seaton, M.D., Medical Inspector to the Privy Council. Extra 
fcap, 8vo. 8s. 6d, 

The author's object in putting forth this work is twofold : First, to 
provide a text-book on the science and practice of Vaccination for 
the use of younger practitioners and of medical students ; secondly, 
to give what assistance he could to those engaged in the administra- 
tion of the system of Public Vaccination established in England. 
For many years past, from the nature of his office, Dr. Seaton has 
had constant intercourse in reference to the subject of Vaccination, 
with medical men who are interested in it, and especially with that 
large part of the profession who are engaged as Public Vacci- 
nators. All the varieties of pocks, both in men and the lower 
animals, are treated of in detail, and much valuable information 
given on all points connected with lymph, and minute instructions 
as to the niceties and cautions which so greatly influence success 
in Vaccination. The administrative sections of the work will be 
of interest and value, not only to medical practitioners, but to 
many others to whom a right understanding of the principles on 
zvhich a system of Public Vaccination should be based is indis- 
pensable. 

Symonds (J. A., M.D.)— MISCELLANIES. By John 
Addington Symonds, M.D. Selected and Edited, with an 
Introductory Memoir, by his Son. 8vo. "js. 6d. 

The late Dr. Symonds of Bristol zvas a jnan of a singularly versatile 
and elegant as well as powerful and scientific intellect. In order 
to make this selection from his many works generally interesting, 
tht editor has confined himself to works of pure literature, and to 
such scientific studies as had a general philosophical or social 
interest. Among the general subjects are articles on "the Principles 
of Beauty," on "Knowledge" and a "Life of Dr. Prichard ;" 
among the Scientific Studies are papers on " Sleep and Dreams," 
"Apparitions," "the Relations between Mind and Muscle," 
"Habit," etc.; there are several papers on "the Social and 
Political Aspects of Medicine ; " and a few Poems and Transla- 
tions selected from a great number of equal mei'it. "A collection of 
graceful essays on general and scientific subjects, by a very accom- 
plished ph ysicia n. "■*»- Graphic. 



MENTAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY, ETC. 55 



WORKS ON MENTAL AND MORAL 
PHILOSOPHY, AND ALLIED SUBJECTS. 

Aristotle. — AN INTRODUCTION TO ARISTOTLE'S 
RHETORIC. With Analysis, Notes, and Appendices. By E. 
M. Cope, Trinity College, Cambridge. 8vo. 14^. 

This work is introductory to an edition of the Greek Text 0/ Aristotle's 
Rhetoric, which is in course of preparation. Its object is to render 
that treatise thoroughly intelligible. The author has aimed to 
illustrate, as preparatory to the detailed explanation of the work, the 
general bearings and relations of the Art of Rhetoric in itself, as 
well as the special mode of treating it adopted by Aristotle in his 
peculiar system. The evidence upon obscure or doubtful questions 
connected with the subject is examined; and the relations which 
Rhetoric bears, in Aristotle's view, to the kindred art of Logic are 
fully considered. A connected Analysis of the work is given, ana 
a few important matters are separately discussed in Appendices. 
There is added, as a general Appendix, by way of specimen of the 
antagonistic system of Isocrates and others, a complete analysis of 
the treatise called 'Vi^ropixh ^pos 'A\4£avdpov, with a discussion of 
its authorship and of the probable results of its teaching. 

ARISTOTLE ON FALLACIES; OR, THE SOPHISTICI 
ELENCHL With a Translation and Notes by Edward Poste, 
M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. 8vo. 8^. 6d. 

Besides the doctrine of Fallacies, Aristotle offers, either in this treatise 
or in other passages quoted in the Commentary, various glances 
over the world of science and opinion, various suggestions or pro- 
blems which are still agitated, and a vivid picture of the ancient 
system of dialectics, which it is hoped may be found both interesting 



56 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 

and instructive. "It will be art assistance to genuine students of 
Aristotle.'''' — Guardian. "It is indeed a work of great skill.'" — 
Saturday Review. 

Birks.— FIRST PRINCIPLES OF MORAL SCIENCE; Or, 
a First Coui-se of Lectures delivered in the University of Cam- 
bridge. By the Rev. T. R. Btrks, Professor of Moral Philosophy. 
Crown Svo. Ss. 6d. 

Boole. — AN INVESTIGATION OF THE LAWS OF 
THOUGHT, ON WHICH ARE FOUNDED THE 
MATHEMATICAL THEORIES OF LOGIC AND PRO- 
BABILITIES. By George Boole, LL.D., Professor of 
Mathematics in the Queen's University, Ireland, &c. 8vo. 14^. 

The design of this treatise is to investigate the fundamental laws oj 
those operations of the mind by tvhich reasoning is performed ; to 
give expression to them in the symbolical language of a Calculus, 
and upon this foundation to establish the science of Logic and con- 
strue t its viethod ; to make that method itself the basis of a general 
method for the application of the mathematical doctrine of Proba- 
bilities ; and, finally, to collect from the various elements of truth 
brought to view in the course of these inquiries some probable inti- 
mations concerning the nature and construction of the human 
mind. The problem is one of the highest interest, and no one is 
better able than Professor Boole to treat of this side of it at any ra'e. 

Butler (W. A.), Late Professor of Moral Philosophy in the 
University of Dublin : — 

LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILO- 
SOPHY. Edited from the Author's MSS., with Notes, by 
William Hepworth Thompson, M.A., Master of Trinity 
College, and Regius Professor of Greek in the University of 
Cambridge. Two Volumes. 8vo. il. $s. 

These lectures consist of an Introductory Series on the Science of Mind 
generally, and five other Series on Ancient Philosophy, the greater 
part of which treat of Plato and the Plato nists, the Fifth Series 
being an unfinished course on the Psychology of Aristotle, contain- 
ing an able Analysis of the well known though by no means well 



MENTAL AND MORAL PHI LOS OP H Y, E TC, 5 7 

Butler (W. A.)— continued. 

understood Treatise, ncpl ipvxys. These Lectures are the result of 
patient and conscientious examination of the original documents, 
and may be considered as a perfectly independent contribution to our 
knowledge of the great master of Grecian wisdom. The author 's 
intimate familiarity with the metaphysical writings of the last 
century, and especially with the English and Scotch School of 
Psychologists, has enabled him to illustrate the subtle speculations 
of which he treats in a manner calculated to render them more 
intelligible to the English mind than they can be by writers trained 
solely in the technicalities of modern German schools. The editor 
has verified all the references, and added valuable Notes, in which 
he points out sources of more complete information. The Lectures 
constitute a History of the Platonic Philosophy — its seed-time, 
maturity, and decay. 

SERMONS AND LETTERS ON ROMANISM.- See Theo- 
logical Catalogue. 

Calderwood. — Works by the Rev. Henry Calderwood, M.A., 
LL.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edin- 
burgh : — 

PHILOSOPHY OF THE INFINITE : A Treatise on Man's 
Knowledge of the Infinite Being, in answer to Sir W. Hamilton 
and Dr. Mansel. Cheaper Edition. 8vo. *js. 6d. 

The purpose of this volume is, by a careful analysis of consciousness, 
to prove, in opposition to Sir W. Hamilton and Mr. Mansel, that 
man possesses a notion of an Infinite Being, and to ascertain the 
peculiar nature of the conception and the particular relations in 
which it is found to arise. The province of Faith as related to that 
of Knowledge, and the characteristics of Knowledge and Thought 
as bearing on this subject, are examined ; and separate chapters are 
devoted to the consideration of our knowledge of the Infinite as 
First Cause, as Moral Governor, and as the Object of Worship. 
"A book of great ability .... "written in a clear style, and may 
be easily understood by even those who are not versed in such 
discussions" — British Quarterly Review. 

A HANDBOOK OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. Second Edition. 
Crown 8vo. 6s. 



58 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 



" It is, tvefeelcoitvinced, the best handbook on the subject, intellectually 
and morally, and does infinite credit to its author." — Standard. 

Elam.— A PHYSICIAN'S PROBLEMS. — See Medical 
Catalogue, preceding. 

Galton (Francis).— HEREDITARY GENIUS : An Inquiry 
into its Laws and Consequences. See Physical Science 
Catalogue, preceding. 

Green (J. H.)— SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY: Founded on 
the Teaching of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge. By the 
late Joseph Henry Green, F.R.S., D.C.L. Edited, with a 
Memoir of the Author's Life, by John Simon, F.R.S., Medical 
Officer of Her Majesty's Privy Council, and Surgeon to St. 
Thomas's Hospital. Two Vols. 8vo. 2$s. 

The late Mr. Green, the eminent surgeon, was for many years the 
intimate friend and disciple of Coleridge, and an ardent student of 
philosophy . The language of Coleridge's will imposed on Mr. 
Green the obligation of devoting, so far as necessary, the remainder 
of his life to the one task of systematizing, developing, and establish- 
ing the doctrines of the Coleridgian philosophy. With the assist- 
ance of Coleridge's manuscripts, but especially from the knowledge 
he possessed of Coleridge's doctrines, and independent study of at least 
the basal principles and metaphysics of the sciences a7id oj all the 
phenomena of human life, he proceeded logically to work out a 
system of universal philosophy such as he deemed zvould in the main 
accord with his master's aspirations. After jnany years of pre- 
paratory labour he resolved to complete in a compendious form a 
work which should give in system the doctrines most distinctly 
Coleridgian. The result is these two volumes. The first volume 
is devoted to the general principles of philosophy ; the second aims at 
vindicating a priori (on principles for which the first volume has 
contended) the essential doctrines of Christianity. The zvork is 
divided into four parts: I. "On the Intellectual Faculties and 
processes which are concerned in the Investigation of Truth." 
II. " Of First Principles in Philosophy." III. " Truths of 
Religion." IV. " The Idea of Christianity in relation to Con- 
troversial Philosophy." 



MENTAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY, ETC. 59 

Huxley (Professor.)— lay sermons, addresses, 
AND REVIEWS. See Physical Science Catalogue, 
preceding. 

Jevons. — Works by W. Stanley Jevons, M.A., Professor oi 
Logic in Owens College, Manchester : — 

THE SUBSTITUTION OF SIMILARS, the True Principle of 
Reasoning. Derived from a Modification of Aristotle's Dictum. 
Fcap. 8vo. is. 6d. 

"All acts of reasoning,''" the author says, "seem to me to be dif- 
ferent cases of one uniform process, which may perhaps be best 
described as the substitution of similars.. This phrase clearly 
expresses that familiar mode in which we continually argue by 
analogy from like to like, and take one thing as a representative 
of another. The chief difficulty consists in showing that all the 
forms of the old logic, as well as the fundamental rules of mathe- 
matical reasoning, ??iay be explained upon the same principle; and 
it is to this difficult task I have devoted the most attention. Should 
my notion be true, a vast mass of technicalities may be swept from 
our logical text-books and yet the small remaining part of logical 
doctrine will prove far more useful than all the learning of the 
Schoolmen.'''' Prefixed is apian of a new reasoning machine, the 
Logical Abacus, the construction and working of which is fully 
explained in the text and Appendix. "Mr. Jevons' book is very 
clear and intelligible, and quite worth consulting.'" — Guardian. 



MaCCOll. — THE GREEK SCEPTICS, from Pyrrho to Sextus- 
An Essay which obtained the Hare Prize in the year 1868. By 
Norman Maccoll, B.A., Scholar of Downing College, Cam- 
bridge. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 

This Essay consists of five parts: I. "Introduction." II. "Pyrrho 
and TimonP III. "The New Academy:' IV. "The Later 
Sceptics." V. " The Pyrrhoneans and New Academy con- 
trasted." — "Mr. Maccoll has produced a monograph which merits 
the gratitude of all students of philosophy. His style is clear and 
vigorous ; he has mastered the authorities, and criticises them in a 
modest but independent spirit:' 1 — Pall Mall Gazette. 



60 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 

M'Cosh — Works by James M'Cosh, LL.D., President of Princeton 
College, New Jersey, U.S. 

" He certainly shows himself skilful in that application of logic to 
psychology, in that inductive science of the human mind which is 
the fine side of English philosophy. His philosophy as a whole is 
worthy of attention." — Revue de Deux Mondes. 

THE METHOD OF THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT, Physical 
and Moral. Tenth Edition. 8vo. \os. 6d. 

This work is divided into four books. The first presents a general 
view of the Divine Government as fitted to throw light on the 
character of God; the second deals with the method of the Divine 
Government in the physical world ; the third treats of the principles 
of the human mind through which God governs mankind; and the 
fourth is on Pastoral and Revealed Religion, and the Restoration 
of Alan. An Appendix, consisting of seven articles, investigates 
the fundamental principles which underlie the speculations of the 
treatise. " This work is distinguished from other similar ones by 
its being based upon a thorough study of physical science, and an 
accurate knowledge of its present condition, and by its entering in a 
deeper and more unfettered manner than its predecessors upon the dis- 
cussion of the appropriate psychological, ethical, and theological ques- 
tions. The author keeps aloof at once from the a priori idealism and 
dreaminess of German speculation since Schelling, and from the 
onesided ness and narrcnuness of the empiricism and positivism 
which have so prevailed in England." — Dr. Ulrici, in "Zeitschrift 
fur Philosophic" 

THE INTUITIONS OF THE MIND. A New Edition. 8vo. 

cloth. lew. 6d. 

The object of this treatise is to determine the true nature of Intuition, 
and to investigate its laws. It starts with a general view of 
intuitive convictions, their character and the method in which they 
are employed, and passes on to a more detailed examination of 
them, treating them under the various heads of "Primitive Cogni- 
tions," " Primitive Beliefs ;" " Primitive Judgments," and "Moral 
Convictions." Their relations to the various sciences, mental and 
physical, are then examined. Collateral criticisms are thrown 
into preliminary and supplementary chapters and sections. ' ' The 
■undertaking to adjust the claims of the sensational and intuitional 



MENTAL AND MORA L PHILOSOPHY, ETC. 6 1 



M'Cosh (J.)_ continued. 

philosophies, and of the a posteriori and a priori methods, is 
accomplished in this work with a great amount of success." — 
"Westminster Review. " I value it for its large acquaintance 
with English Philosophy, which has not led him to neglect the 
qreat German works. I admire the moderation and clearness, as 
well as comprehensiveness, of the author's views" — Dr. Dorner, of 
Berlin. 

AN EXAMINATION OF MR. J. S. MILL'S PHILOSOPHY: 
Being a Defence of Fundamental Truth. Crown 8vo. 7-r. 6d. 

This volume is 7iot put forth by its author as a special reply to Mr. 
Mill's " Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' 1 '' 
In that work Mr. Mill has furnished the means of thoroughly 
estimating his theory of mind, of which he had only given hints 
and glimpses in his logical treatise. It is this theory which Dr. 
M'Cosh professes to examine in this volume; his aim is simply to 
defend a portion of primary truth which has been assailed by an 
acute thinker who has extensive influence in England. "In 
such points as Mr. MilVs notions of intuitions and necessity, he 
will have the voice of mankind with him."—- Athenaeum. "Such 
a work greatly needed to be done, and the author was the man to 
do it. This volume is important, not merely in reference to the 
views of Mr. Mill, but of the whole school of writers, past and 
present, British and Continental, he so ably represents" — Princeton 
Review. 

THE LAWS OF DISCURSIVE THOUGHT : Being a Text- 
book of Formal Logic. Crown 8vo. $s. 

The main feature of this logical Treatise is to be found in the more 
thorough investigation of the nature of the notion, in regard to 
which the views of the school of Locke and Whately are regarded 
by the author as very defective, and the views of the school of Kant 
a> id Hamilton altogether erroneous. The author believes that 
errors spring far more frequently from obscure, inadequate, indis- 
tinct, and confused Notions, and from not placing the Notions in 
their proper relation in judgment, than from Ratiocination. In 
this treatise, therefore, the Notion (with the term, and the Relation 
of Thought to Language) will be found to occupy a larger relative 
place than in any logical work written since the time of the famous 



62 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 



M ' C O Sh ( J . )— continued. 

Art of Thinking. " The amount of sum?narized information 
which it contains is very great; and it is the only work on the very 
important subject with which it deals. Never was such a zvork 
so much needed as in the present day." — London Quarterly 
Review. 

CHRISTIANITY AND POSITIVISM : A Series of Lectures to 
the Times on Natural Theology and Apologetics. Crown 8vo. 
Js. 6d. 

These Lectures were delivered in New York, by appointment, in the 
beginning of 1871, as the second course on the foundation of 
the Union Theological Seminary. There are ten Lectures in all, 
divided into three series : — /. ' ' Christianity and Physical Science'''' 
(three lectures). II. "Christianity and Mental Science" (four 
lectures). III. " Christianity and Historical Investigation''' (three 
lectures). The Appendix contains articles on "Gaps in the Theory 
of Development ;" " Darwin' s Descent of Man ;" "Principles 
of Herbert Spencer's Philosophy." In the course of the Lectures 
Dr. M' Cosh discusses all the most important scientific problems 
which are supposed to affect Christianity. 



MasSOIl.— RECENT BRITISH PHILOSOPHY : A Review, 
with Criticisms ; including some Comments on Mr. Mill's Answer 
to Sir William Hamilton. By David Masson, M.A., Professor 
of Rhetoric and English Literature in the University of Edinburgh. 
Crown 8vo. 6s. 

The author, in his usual graphic and forcible manner, reviews in 
considerable detail, and points out the drifts of the philosophical 
speculations of the previous thirty years, bringing under notice the 
work of all the principal philosophers who have been at work during 
that period on the highest problems which concern humanity. The 
four chapters are thus titled: — I. "A Survey of Thirty Years." 
II. ' ' The Traditional Differences : how repeated in Carlyle, 
Hamilton, and Mill." III. " Effects of Recent Scientific Con- 
ceptions on Philosophy." IV. "Latest Drifts and Groupings." 
The last seventy-six pages are devoted to a Review of Mr. Mill's 
criticism of Sir William Hamilton' 's Philosophy. "We can 
nowhere point to a work which gives so clear an exposition of 



MENTAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY, ETC. 63 

the course of philosophical speculation in Bi'itain during the past 
century, or which indicates so instructively the mutual influences of 
philosophic and scientific thought." — Fortnightly Review. 

Maurice. — Works by the Rev. Frederick Dexison Maurice, 
M.A., Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Cam- 
bridge. (For other Works by the same Author, see Theological 
Catalogue.) 

SOCIAL MORALITY, Twenty-one Lectures delivered in the 
University of Cambridge. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 
10s. 6d. 

In this series of Lectures, Professor Maurice considers, historically 
and critically, Social Morality in its three main aspects : I. " The 
Relations which spring from the Family — Domestic Morality." 
II. i ' TJie Relations which subsist among the various constituents 
of a A T ation — National Morality." III. "As it concerns Uni- 
versal Humanity — Umversal Morality." Appended to each series 
is a chapter on " Worship :" first, "Family Worship;" second, 
"National Worship;" third, "Universal Worship." " Whilst 
reading it we are charmed by the freedom from exclusiveness and 
prejudice, the large charity, the loftiness of thought, the eagerness to 
recognize and appreciate whatever there is of real worth extant in 
the world, which animates it from one eiud to the other. We gain 
nrd) thoughts and new ways of viewing things, even more, perhaps, 
from being brought for a time under the influence of so noble and 
spiritual a mind." — Athenaeum. 

THE CONSCIENCE : Lectures on Casuistry, delivered in the 
University of Cambridge. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 
8vo. 5i\ 

In this series of nine Lectures, Professor Mat/rice, with his wonted 
force and breadth and freshness, endeavours to settle what is meant 
by the word "Conscience," and discusses the most important 
questions immediately connected with the subject. Taking " Casu- 
istry " in its old sense as being the "study of cases of Conscience" 
he endeavours to show in what way it may be brought to bear at 
the present day upon the acts and thoughts of our ordinary 
existence. He shows that Conscience asks for laws, not rules : 
for freedom, not chains ; for education, not suppression. He 



64 SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE. 

Maurice (F. D .)— continued. 

has abstained from the use of philosophical terms, and has touched 
on philosophical systems only when he fancied "they zvere inter- 
fering with the rights and duties of wayfarers." The Saturday 
Review says: "We ?'ise from them with detestation of all that is 
selfish and mean, and with a living impression that there is such a 
thing as goodness after all." 

MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY. New- 
Edition and Preface. Vol. I. Ancient Philosophy and the First to 
the Thirteenth Centuries ; Vol. II. the Fourteenth Century and the 
French Revolution, with a glimpse into the Nineteenth Century. 
New Edition. 2 Vols. 8vo. 25 s. 

This is an Edition in two volumes of Professor Maurice 's History of 
Philosophy from the earliest period to the present time. It was 
formerly scattered th7-oughout a number of separate volumes, and it 
is believed that all admirers of the author and all students of 
philosophy tvill zvelcome this compact Edition. The subject is one 
■of the highest importance, and it is treated here with fulness and 
candour, and in a clear and interesting manner. In a long intro- 
duction to this Edition, in the form of a dialogue, Professor Maurice 
justifies some of his own peculiar vieivs, and touches upon some of 
the most important topics of the time. 

Murphy,— THE SCIENTIFIC BASES OF FAITH. By 

Joseph John Murphy, Author of " Habit and Intelligence." 
Svo. 14X. 

" The book is not without substantial value ; the writer continues the 
zvork of the best apologists of the last century, it may be with less 
force and clearness, but still with commendable persuasiveness and 
tact; and with an intelligent feeling for the changed conditions of 
the problem." — Academy. 

Picton.— THE MYSTERY OF MATTER AND OTHER 
ESSAYS. By J. Allanson Picton, Author of " New Theories 
and the Old Faith." Crown Svo. 10s. 6d. 

Contents :— The Mystery of Matter — The Philosophy of Igno- 
rance — The Antithesis of Faith and Sight — The Essential Nature 
of Religion —Christian Pantheism. 



3IEXTAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY, ETC. 65 

Thring (E., M. A.)— THOUGHTS ON LIFE-SCIENCE. 
By Edward Thring, M.A. (Benjamin Place), Head Master of 
Uppingham School. New Edition, enlarged and reused. 
Crown 8vo. Is. 6d. 

In this volume are discussed in a familiar manner some of the most 
interesting problems behveen Science and Religion, Reason and 
Feeling. * ' Learning a nd Science, ' ' says the author, ' ' are claiming 
the right of building up and pulling doton everything, especially 
the latter. It has seemed to me no useless task to look steadily at 
what has happened, to take stock as it were of merts gains, and to 
endeavour amidst new circumstances to arrive at some rational 
estimate of the bearings of things, so that the limits of what is 
possible at all events may be clearly marked out for ordinary 

readers This book is an endeavour to bring out some of the 

main facts of the world." 

Venn. — THE LOGIC OF CHANCE : An Essay on the Founda- 
tions and Province of the Theory of Probability, with especial 
reference to its application to Moral and Social Science. By John 
Venn, M.A., Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. 
Fcap. 8vo. Js. 6d. 

This Essay is in no sense mathematical. Probability, the author 
thinks, may be considered to be a portion of the province of Logic 
regarded from the material point ofziew. The principal objects of 
this Essay are to ascertain how great a portion it comprises, where 
we are to draw the boundary between it and the contiguous branches 
of the general science of evidence, what are the ultimate foundations 
upon which its rules rest, what the nature of the evidence they are 
capable of affoi'ding, and to what class of subjects they may most 
fitly be applied. The general design of the Essay, as a special 
treatise on Probability, is quite original, the author believing that 
erroneous notions as to the real nature of the subject are disastrously 
prevalent. " Exceedingly well thought and well written," says the 
Westminster Review. The Nonconformist calls it a "masterly 
book." 



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